T
HE DOOR WAS
opened.
“Come in,” said the voice. It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order. “I know who you are.” A small, grating pause, as gum was chewed. “I mean, I know who you really are.”
I stepped inside. The door closed.
T
HE SMELL HIT
you first. Teenage bedroom and mildew. A persistent musty sense of dirt. The place was so dark that smell was about all you had to go on at first. Then, like stars slowly coming out in the night sky, details presented themselves.
The hallway was dark because it was wood-panelled, like a tiny baronial mansion. Dark red carpets soaked into the floor. Only one door was open off the hallway, and that was lit solely by the blue twinkle of a laptop screen. The heavy curtains were drawn. The thick air suggested they’d never been opened.
Standing in front of me was a man. He looked like all of his photos, but only in the sense that, in person, you could kind of see how he could look like he did in his photos. In photos he was commanding and dignified, a bulky suited figure dominating the room. A huge bear of a man. In the flesh, he was simply quite a lot of flesh, squeezed into running gear that had never gone faster than a trot.
So, I’d done smell and sight. Sound was also troubling. There was an odd wet clicky-clicky noise. I realised it was coming from his mouth. He was chewing gum constantly.
This was it. I was standing in front of an internet pioneer. The man who invented the slogan, ‘All Knowledge Good.’ The man who thumped the desk until it agreed with him. Henry Jarman.
And he knew who I was.
W
E STOOD THERE,
in the foetid hall. It felt like a blind date. Except that on a blind date the only things you know about each other are what you want each other to know. And they aren’t true anyway. You’ve probably not bothered to update your favourite film for three years. You may say you ‘love cake,’ but what does that even mean? We’re just trying to make ourselves sound interesting. And we’re not.
But I’d read everything about Henry Jarman. I’d worshipped him for years. Even when he was wrong, he was interesting. And he was here. In front of me. Which was awkward.
And he was speaking, his lips were chewing, constant motion. And he was just staring at me. Every time he blinked, he chewed. It was like his eyelids were wet and sticky. It was a revolting sound.
“See,” he breathed, “I have to be careful. It’s not as though I let anyone in to see me. Especially not an interview request from someone who claims to be a journalist, with a made-up name, who has never written anything, from a blog that barely exists. So I did some digging. And some more digging. And the more I looked the more I found out. And yet—” He stopped talking. He even stopped chewing for a long time. And then it came. A blink and a chew. “Yeah... You could call me a fan. I’ve long been interested in meeting you. I really have. All Knowledge Good, you see. You hungry? I know a really excellent place.”
T
HE WALK TO
the restaurant was awkward. For a start, Jarman had wrapped himself up like the Invisible Man, his eyes darting above his scarf niqab. “Got to be careful,” he murmured. “To be perceived is to be.”
We trudged on, with the awkward and occasional small talk that happens between people who are uncertain of each other.
“Cigarette?” he offered. I declined. “Force of habit. I don’t have any,” he sighed, still chewing manfully away. “Gave up. Used to smoke on the doorstep, but then it turned out They could see me. The scum.”
Uh-oh. There’s nothing like a proper blast of paranoia when you’ve just met someone.
We came to a halt outside what seemed to be an unprepossesing Indian restaurant. A yellow plastic sign said, ‘The TAJ.’ The phone number used the old 01 London area code.
Jarman halted, a pilgrim in front of Xanadu. He slowly and theatrically unwound his scarf, sticking his neck out and sniffing the air appreciatively. As he did so, a muffled-up young woman, seemingly walking innocuously past, held up her phone with a flash-click, smiled and hurried on.
Jarman turned to me, smiling with grim satisfaction. “See?” he intoned. “They’re everywhere.” Vindicated, he threw open the door and paused on the threshold, allowing the bell’s tinkle to fade away before announcing, “This is the finest food outside Delhi. Amazing. It will make you cry.”
Then he led me in.
The restaurant was dark and empty. Red velvet paper clung valiantly to the walls. Distantly, someone sang over a zither. A sign said, ‘Please wait to be seated.’ There were no other diners. There were no staff.
Just us.
The singer sang on, her wail rising to a scream that echoed off the fur of the walls.
A kitchen door swung open and a waiter wandered past, carrying a half-empty bottle of Pepsi. He spotted us with some surprise and silently pointed us to a table.
“Ah, my old friend! Away from the window, if you please, Imran,” boomed Jarman.
The waiter shrugged, and wordlessly pointed us to a table in the middle of the room and went away.
We sat down. There were no menus. Through force of habit, I hunted around for one. There was only an old piece of yellow rice stuck to the tablecloth.
“Don’t bother,” growled Jarman. “The food here is exquisite, and I know the menu like the back of my hand. I’ll order for us both.” There was to be no question about this.
We sat in more awkward silence until the waiter came back and then Jarman bellowed what sounded like the entire menu at him. I began to understand his size from his definition of lunch. He refused to “talk shop” until after food, so we had another wait to endure. Jarman finally found a topic, holding court on an interview with him in the
Metro
the previous week: “The girl turned up and she asked stupid questions, so of course she got stupid answers,” he rumbled. “I don’t know why I bother. Life’s too short to think about people like that. I rang her editor and told him so personally.”
I was sat in a restaurant with Henry Jarman waiting for lunch. This was my last assignment for the Killuminati. And I felt a terrible sinking feeling.
T
HE
N
INJA HAD
been waiting for me when I’d got home from the police station. The cat was weaving around her legs.
“Right,” I said. “Hello.”
Actually, it didn’t really come out like that. A fair bit of startled yelping went on. It’s not every day you find a hot Ninja in your living room. Her arms were crossed. She looked patient. Like... well, you know when you’re playing a video game and you can’t quite think what to do? The world’s exploding, dragons are attacking, and, lacking input, your central character just folds their arms and waits for instructions? The Ninja was doing that.
She wasn’t quite tapping her feet. But she was curious.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
This was it, I guessed. Now I was working for the Killuminati again. All part of the package.
“We’ve got to be careful from now on,” she said. Again, that hopelessly cool Scots burr. “Subtle. Getting the police involved—that was a mistake. You’ve got careless.”
“And sending a ninja, that’s subtle?”
“Subtler than you.”
“Look... I’ve never said this to a ninja before, but would you like a drink?”
“No.”
“I don’t know what to do. I mean, I could make tea. But you’d look silly. Sipping it through your mask. Wine... but that dulls the senses, doesn’t it? Perhaps just a glass of water. Or milk.”
“You’re babbling.”
“I’ve had a long and weird day. Couldn’t my lawyer have handled this?”
“Andrea is for the nice things. I’m here to talk to you.”
“Nicely?”
The Ninja shook her head.
I felt a little sick.
She stepped forward, striding around the flat, with the slow, authoritative prowl of a hunter sizing a space up. Recognising supremacy, the cat followed on behind, adoringly.
“You’ve done what you’ve been told so far...” she said.
“Yes.” My mouth was drier than I’d have liked.
“And it’s worked well. But when you’ve gone rogue—”
Gone rogue
. Wow. She spoke like Andy McNab.
“—it’s not been so clear. You’ve grown sloppy.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s absolutely fine.” I held up my hands. “It’s really fine. Tonight’s been a bit of a wake-up call. I can’t believe I’ve got away with it for as long as I have.”
“You’re not done,” said the Ninja. Underneath the mask, I sensed she was smiling. “You’re done when we tell you you’re done.”
“What?”
“Small print’ll get you every time,” she said, echoing Andrea. Whereabouts in Scotland was she from, I wondered? Was she from Glasgow’s East End, or from somewhere nice in Edinburgh, or somewhere grey like Aberdeen, or some remote Highland? I had an absurd image of her standing in the prow of a small boat as it drifted across a loch. God, dates with her must be kind of exciting. “So, I’m a digital experience strategy consultant—and what do you do?”
The Ninja slapped me in the face. The pain woke me up. The pain more than woke me up. I fell back, my eyes stinging. Someone had hit me. In my own flat. This was getting to be a habit.
“You weren’t listening.” She didn’t sound angry, just mildly annoyed. “And it’s important that you listen to me.”
“Okay,” I said. There wasn’t, when I thought back about it, that much of a whimper.
“Check your email. One more job. Follow the instructions.”
“No,” I said. “You can hit me again, but no.”
“Oh, you’ll do it.” The Ninja sounded smug. Like she’d peeked into the future.
“Listen,” I said to her, holding up my hands. Showing I wasn’t a threat. “Listen—right... if they’re employing you as well as me... well, why don’t they use you instead of me? I mean, you’re obviously better than me at everything. And way more...” I didn’t say
sexy
. Never tell a ninja they’re sexy. “Way cooler. You’re what I’ll never be.”
The Ninja nodded. She took the compliment. “Think about it,” she said. “Think it through and you’ll realise.”
The only solution I had was that I was disposable. I didn’t say it out loud, but the Ninja nodded again. Like she could read my thoughts.
“Get out your phone,” she said. “Get ready to film something.”
“A confession?”
“No. Not really. Just something that will get a lot of views on YouTube.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and fumbled with it. My hands were shaking so I set it down on the counter, resting up against a cookery book. Filming most of the room.
The Ninja nodded. The she picked up the cat, stroking her. The cat purred, rubbing against the mask, pushing it up, teasing me with tiny glimpses of face. For an absurd moment I wondered if it was Amber. But it couldn’t be. Instead of Amber’s delicate Indian skin, the Ninja’s skin was so pale. Almost transparent. The cat purred and nuzzled.
I normally have ever so much trouble fitting the cat into her box for trips to the vet. But she climbed into the microwave without protest. Just sat inside mewing gently.
I was screaming by this point.
“So,” said the Ninja. “What do you think works? Defrost? Do you think a minute on defrost and she’ll be fine? Or is it just 10 seconds on full? Which do you want to try? You choose.”
I just stood there. Shouting.
The cat looked at me. And mewed again. She tapped the glass door curiously.
The Ninja dialled up some numbers. Beep. Beep. Beep. Her finger hovered over start.
I threw myself at her, but she blocked me with an arm. And then pressed start.
The microwave started up. The slow whirring grind. The table trying to spin. The cat scrabbling against the glass.
I howled.
The Ninja pressed ‘stop,’ with a cheerful ‘bing.’
She stood back, looking at me.
The cat watched her curiously from inside the microwave.
“Okay,” I said, crying. “You’ve made your point.”
“Good,” said the Ninja, and headed for the door. She paused.
“At the end of the day, it really is all about the cats.”
I never saw her again.
S
O, THAT WAS
why I was sat in a restaurant with Henry Jarman waiting for lunch. And I felt a terrible sinking feeling.
Eventually the meal turned up, and it was horrible. Lumps of school-dinner meat stewing in either oil+cream or oil+tomato soup. I was worried that I’d have to politely pick away at it, but I didn’t get a chance.
Jarman shovelled all of the food bar the oily residue onto his plate and devoured it, pausing to smear curry kisses across his cheeks with the tablecloth. He slung three pints of lager down his maw as well, filling the air with the smell of hops and chilli. Only as his feasting began to subside did I realise that he was still chewing Nicotine gum. My stomach turned. Dutifully I turned my attention to the quarter of naan bread I’d left on my side plate, but discovered that Jarman had already reached over and was rubbing the grease from a silver bowl with it. He said only one thing, and that was rather curious. “The condemned man,” he belched, “ate a hearty meal. Ha ha.”
When he’d finally subsided, he summoned the waiter over.
“My compliments to the chef!” he announced. “Bring him to us. I wish him to meet my old friend.” He turned to me. “Mahmood is a splendid chap. A real jewel. You’ll love him. He’s one of my oldest comrades-in-arms. For an army marches on its stomach, and he is my victualler. Bring me Mahmood!”
The waiter demurred. “I’m afraid, sir, that today the chef is rather busy.”
I looked around at the empty restaurant and back at the waiter. His eyes were fixed on the tablecloth.
“Nonsense!” cried Jarman. “Fetch us Mahmood!” He thumped the table with his fist.
T
HIS WAS ALL
unbelievably awkward. This was a man who had bullied governments, wooed and ruined
Guardian
journalists, campaigned on four different continents for free speech, been elected honorary Vice Chancellor of three different universities, been talked of for a Nobel Peace prize and turned down
I’m A Celebrity
. This was, I knew, my one chance to talk to him. And here he was, behaving like an irate child.