Authors: Nic Bennett
He pushed through the glass revolving doors into the “shark tank.” It seemed very quiet. Clive’s death hung heavily in the air. The receptionists always wore black suits, but today they looked more like funeral suits than ever. Jonah ascended the escalator and walked down the corridor toward the trading floor. The sense of foreboding grew greater.
What was it? Was it Clive’s suicide?
Or was there something else?
The doors opened, and Jonah was hit with almost complete silence. There was no trading activity.
What was happening?
He walked down the avenue of desks to the Bunker, feeling that everybody was staring at him. “What’s the story? What’s going on?” he asked as he placed his briefcase and coffee cup on his desk. The Baron was nowhere to be seen.
The reply took seconds to come back. Jonah could feel his heart beating faster and louder, could feel his face flushing. He understood now that those stares had been malevolent.
It was Dog who spoke first. “Dunno mate. You tell us.” His voice was loaded with sarcasm.
Jonah’s legs began to shake.
“We’re toast.” It was Birdcage.
“I, uh, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jonah stammered.
“Your dad’s shafted us. Shafted us all.” This time it was Jeeves speaking. He adjusted his bow tie but only managed to make it even more askew.
His dad! What had his dad done?
He’d been away all weekend and yesterday. He’d only come back late last night. “My dad?”
“Yes, your dad. Your bloody dad.” Dog’s voice was rising. “We’re blacklisted! We’re going down!” He was shouting now.
“My dad?” Jonah repeated, aware that the whole trading floor was looking at him, hating him. He mind raced back to four years ago and those first minutes in Drizzlers’ Den. That time the Bunker had come to his rescue. Now they were his accusers. Once again he wondered if he could hide under the desk. He could feel his mouth quivering as if he was about to cry.
“Yeah. What’s he dropped this time?” Jeeves taunted. “Three hundred? Four hundred? Five hundred? More?”
Milkshake spoke up. “Nobody will trade with us. Nobody will touch us.”
“They say we’re going down,” Birdcage exclaimed, shaking his towering head. “WE ARE TOAST!”
Jonah collapsed into his chair.
Suddenly everybody turned toward the doors. Jonah turned too. It was his dad, a security guard in front of him. Pistol, who Jonah had never expected to see again after that one day in Compliance, was waiting for them at the door. The silence was deadly, his father’s face expressionless. He looked straight ahead, avoiding any eye contact with anyone as the security guard followed him to Drizzlers’ Den to collect his belongings. When they reached it, the security guard handed David Lightbody a black trash bag. David opened his three drawers one by one and emptied the contents—a few pens, a stapler, a notebook. There was nothing on top of the desk, and they turned and walked slowly back to the door, Jonah’s father carrying the garbage bag in his right hand. The doors swished open and someone shouted, “Get lost, Lightbody! Don’t come back!”
Jonah watched his father leave, anger welling inside him. The
Drizzler had messed up, and he, Jonah, was being associated with it by virtue of their shared genetics.
Jonah’s line on the comms board began to flash. He saw it but didn’t move. The flashing stopped. He heard Milkshake’s voice. “Yeah he’s here.” There was a pause and then, “Pick it up, kid. Baron for you.”
Jonah leaned forward, stabbing the now slow-flashing button as he picked up his phone. He took a deep breath. The Baron would sort this out, just like he had when the Neanderthals were being horrible. The Baron would protect him. “Hello,” he said eagerly.
“I suggest you go home.” The Baron’s voice was ice cold.
Jonah’s heart fell. “What! Why?”
“Don’t argue with me,” the Baron snapped. “Go home. We’ll need to talk to you once we’ve gotten to the bottom of this mess. Until then you’re suspended.”
Suspended! What!?
“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” Jonah argued.
This time the Baron’s reply was harsher. “Get out, boy! I’ll be the judge of that.” With that, the line went dead.
Jonah stared at the phone for a moment before replacing it. The Baron thought Jonah was associated with whatever his father had done. He didn’t trust him. Jonah sniffled and his mouth again began to quiver. He refused to believe that the Baron had turned against him too. There
had
to be a reason for his behavior. Jonah couldn’t be sure, but he thought he sounded almost pained when he spoke to him, as if the choice was out of his hands.
Jonah stood up and picked up his briefcase. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dog make his fingers into a gun and point it
maliciously at him with a “Click, click. Bang!” There were tears in Jonah’s eyes as he walked shamefully toward the exit, praying that nobody would shout, “Get lost and don’t come back” to him. As if the last sixteen years of neglect hadn’t been enough, his father had now ruined his future.
Once he was
out of the Helsby Cattermole building, Jonah walked toward Cannon Street station intending to go home. That was before he realized that he couldn’t. To go to his house would mean seeing his father. He turned right at the end of New Change Street and left to cross the Millennium Bridge. From there he walked along the River Thames, past the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre and onto London Bridge and Tower Bridge, great landmarks of the City of London. He shuddered—the city where he was now a pariah.
His phone rang incessantly as he walked, so he switched it off, recrossing the river at Tower Bridge and turning right toward Canary Wharf. The towering skyscrapers of London’s other financial district looked down and mocked him. “You can’t work here either,” they seemed to say. He was hungry, but he didn’t eat. Instead he turned and retraced his steps to Waterloo and Vauxhall, passing the MI6 building. At Westminster he crossed the river again, noticing
that his feet were leading him home despite his mind’s protestations. He’d run this route a few times before he’d started working to see if he could use his commuting time as training time. It had become so familiar to him that he was now operating on autopilot.
He walked along the river through Chelsea and Fulham, thinking of Creedence as he did so. Well, that was blown too now. She wasn’t going to want to be associated with a loser. At Putney he crossed the river one final time, picking up the tow path that would take him to Barnes and his lockup garage. He would collect the Vespa and find a hotel for the night. The only one he could think of was the one at the top of Richmond Hill, by the gates to the Park.
He switched on his phone to get the number of the hotel. There were nine new messages, three of them voicemail. The first two were from his father. He deleted them. The third was from Pistol, requesting a meeting on Friday. It could wait. The fourth was a text from Creedence. He nearly deleted it, not wanting to see her cancel their date, but in the end read it anyway: She had heard what had happened; could he please call her?
Maybe
, he thought. The fifth was his father again. He deleted it. More messages from his father and Pistol followed. The last was a voicemail from Creedence, asking him to please, please call him. She was worried.
Jonah hesitated for a moment and then dialed Creedence’s number.
She picked up on the first ring. “You’re alive then?”
He felt guilty. “Yeah. Alive if not kicking.”
“Where are you?” she asked, her voice mixed with relief to be hearing from him and annoyance that he hadn’t called sooner.
“On my way to Richmond.”
“What’s in Richmond?”
“A hotel. I can’t go home. I can’t face my dad.” Jonah wondered if Creedence could tell that he was shaking his head from across the phone waves.
“Why don’t you want to see your dad? Surely he needs your support.”
Jonah snorted with derision. “Creedence, we don’t get on. We hardly speak. If he wants my support, he’s not going to get it.”
“Is that so?” she asked, a slightly disapproving note in her voice.
Jonah charged on. “Yes it is. Thanks to him I’ve been kicked out of Hellcat. Kicked out by the Baron. I hate him. Hate him more than I ever have, and that’s saying something.”
“I see.” She paused. “Where’s your mother?”
“In the States. I haven’t seen her since they got divorced. She doesn’t even send me a Christmas card. I can only guess what he did to her.”
“Blimey, Jonah,” she replied, her tone shifting. “I never knew. I’m sorry.”
Jonah’s tone became more subdued as well. “No need to be. It’s not your problem.”
“Well, don’t go to the hotel. Come to my flat. Being alone will be hideous.”
Jonah was taken aback at her offer, but he worried that it would be wrong to impose this early on. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m not going to be much fun. It’s probably best if I reserve a room at that hotel in Richmond.”
“What!” Creedence exclaimed. “Nonsense. Stay with me.”
“I thought that you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me after today,” Jonah answered softly.
“Why would you think that?” Creedence asked. “And anyway, I’m not inviting you round to be fun. I’m inviting you round precisely because you’re
not
going to be fun. Maybe I can help. I’m leaving the office now, so get in a taxi and I’ll see you there.”
Still Jonah hesitated. “Honestly Creedence, it’s re …”
“Oh, stop being so English. I’ll send you the address, and if you’re not there in half an hour I’m going to send the police to find you. Bye!”
Ten seconds later the information popped up on his phone.
Jonah looked at the address and realized that he did want someone to talk to, and not just anyone either: Creedence. He walked to the lockup garage, collected the Vespa, and headed to Creedence’s flat, stopping off only to buy some flowers and clothes.
It was six o’clock when he rang the bell of Creedence’s flat. Hers was on the ground floor of an old house that had been converted into two separate living arrangements. He was holding his helmet, the bag of clothes, and a bunch of flowers. The flowers seemed like the right thing to do, though Jonah didn’t know for sure what type they were, except that they weren’t roses. He thought that roses would have been wrong somehow. Either way, he was nervous. It felt like a date even if it wasn’t one.
Creedence opened the door.
“Err, these are for you,” he said, holding out the flowers.
She smiled. “Oh, Jonah. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time for thinking about anyone else at the moment. That’s really
sweet.” Then she saw the helmet. “Did you come here by motorbike?” she asked, peering over his shoulder.
“Scooter.” He stepped back so that she could see the Vespa.
“That’s really cool!” Creedence exclaimed, making Jonah pleased that she shared his view of the Vespa. “But don’t you need to be seventeen to ride one of those?” She cocked her head to the side.
Jonah grinned mischievously. “I have my ways.”
“Tut, tut, tut,” she said in fake admonishment. “Well, you don’t want to leave that on the street. Wheel it through to the back. That’s where I keep my bike. Here, let me take your stuff, and I’ll get the key to the gate.” She grabbed his bags and disappeared back inside, returning a second later with the key.
Jonah wheeled the Vespa down a narrow alley alongside the house that led straight into a small, overgrown courtyard garden at the back. The flat’s kitchen opened directly into the courtyard via a set of French doors, so Jonah found Creedence waiting for him there. “Come on in,” she beckoned. “And apologies for the mess.”
Jonah followed her inside.
The flat was light and airy with a modern, open-plan kitchen and dining area leading to a sitting room. The walls were off-white, the kitchen Shaker style, and the furniture a mishmash of colors and fabrics: a huge dark blue sofa, a cream armchair, a small yellow leather mini sofa, and a wrought iron and glass coffee table. One wall of the sitting room was filled with books, and scattered around were a variety of shopping bags, magazines, and CDs. Jonah didn’t think it was necessarily messy, more lived in and comfortable—nothing like his own house, or rather his father’s, with its stark white modernism and hard edges.
“Is it yours?” Jonah asked, running his fingers along the cotton fabric of the sofa, fully appreciating what a warm and welcoming place it was.
“Kind of.” Creedence gave a half nod. “My granny owns it, but I live in it, and my parents use it when they’re over from the States, which isn’t very often.”
“It’s awesome,” Jonah said wistfully. The day he had his own flat couldn’t come quickly enough.
“Thanks.” Creedence blushed. “They gutted it a couple of years ago and updated it. I do my best not to trash it.” Creedence walked over to the refrigerator. “Sit down at the table, and we can talk while I make some dinner.” She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne. Then she removed two glasses from a cupboard. “But first a drink!” she announced, turning back to face him. “Granny says that champagne cures all ills, and I reckon you’re in the bracket of ‘ills’ at the moment. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Jonah was about to give his automatic response—he didn’t drink alcohol—but instead he simply nodded and said, “Champagne would be great, thanks.” He’d seen more champagne in the last week than he had in the rest of his life combined.
She opened the bottle expertly and poured two glasses.
“You look as if you’ve done that before?” he joked.
“Haha!” she laughed. “With wine as the family business, I was brought up opening bottles. With champagne, you must hold the cork and turn the bottle. None of this Formula One stuff. We don’t want to waste it.” She handed him a glass and raised hers. “To adulthood and all its crap!”
“To adulthood—” Jonah repeated, hesitating before finishing
the toast; it was his turn to teach her something. “We’ll have to do that again. You didn’t look me in the eye. My dad says you have to look someone in the eye when you toast. Some African tradition.”