Chapter One

Tuesday 27th April 2010

0:00

In hindsight the people involved in the events of the next few days should almost be able to hear the click that happens as Monday 26th April changes to Tuesday 27th April. Suddenly the events leading up to that point have gone from being the past and the events that are to follow are in a league of their own.

When midnight strikes, there is an entire building in the dark with the exception of one solitary light, which threatens to burn into the night, rivalling the brightness of the moon. Regular passers by at this time of night would have spotted that this light never seems to be off, well at least as long as the darkness rules the sky. The light in question comes from the office of a Mr. David Oswald, the CEO of the modestly sized Progression Software.

The light is on six storeys up and he owns the entire floor in this large building. There are many companies in here and it is safe to say that his company is generating more money than any other housed there combined. And he has not made a single illegal transaction through the company.

Anyway, before I start to sound like his accountant, I should move on. The floor is not even being used to optimum capacity. There are a lot of empty rooms filled with rubbish that David will probably never get round to clearing.

The reception area is used but is never really manned. But it’s the welcoming area to anyone who cares to visit. There is a main office and, off that, the office that is currently spewing light into the darkness. This is David’s office in case you had not already guessed. There’s also the standard Kitchen area and Male and Female toilets.

David’s employees consist of five of the brightest programmers in the country. There is also talk of David finally getting a receptionist but it will probably never happen. The phone service is permanently on night service, to be picked up by whoever grabs their phone first. He has given serious consideration to a receptionist just as a first contact for clients if nothing else. He gets easily distracted from such things though. It is hardly top of his priorities at the moment.

The main office consists of six desks – one for each employee and an extra one for David when he wants to have one of his informal chats with them.

There’s a water cooler in the corner - this is very thirsty work after all – beside the window on the left hand side of the office. The view is not very good for morale. There is an identical looking building facing them across the street.

The desks have a Spartan feel – only their computers are at each station. Nothing else. Two of the people who work here have partners. One other had a fiancé who is… not around any more. But there are no pictures of them on display.

The toilets are luxurious by office standards. They have more charm than the entire main office. They manage to combine an old elegance with an almost futuristic feel.

David Oswald had never hired a cleaner. Of course he has thought about it. That is another employee on his list. He has enough money to afford a receptionist and a cleaner. However, the toilets still manage to be spotlessly clean whenever the employees come in the next day. Everyone assumes that David is doing the cleaning but nobody has ever caught him in the act.

The Kitchen area has all the mod cons. A cooker and a microwave sit on a beautiful and expensive looking worktop, along with a kettle and a cupboard.

Inside, the cupboard contains forty-two identical looking mugs. The drawer underneath has forty-two tablespoons, forty-two knives, forty-two forks and forty-two teaspoons. Thirty-six of them lay unused – each member of staff only ever using one each and leaving them on a lower shelf in the cupboard.

There is also enough room for six people to sit comfortably and eat together in the kitchen. But these chairs are never filled.

David’s office is beautifully elaborate. He has a large black leather chair, which would look incredibly tacky was it not for the fact that it goes so well with the large oak table. He has a set of three trays on his desk; one each for “In”, “Out”, and, as someone has jokingly written (he’s not sure who but he has his suspicions), “Shake it all about”.

A picture of a man in a Black Suit, his clothes identical in every way except for the colour to the charcoal grey one that David always wears, sits hung up on the right hand side of the office. To the left he has a slightly nicer looking window to the one we saw earlier in the main office just outside his door, but with an equally dismal view.

David is sitting at his desk, reading a report on something that is in no way related to his official business. He doesn’t look tired in the slightest even though he has not set foot out of the office all day. The only thing that distracts him from his reading is the sudden crash from the main office. His head shoots up and he is heading to the door before he is even aware of what he is doing.

The door flies open and he is greeted by nothing on the other side. Even in the darkness he spots the source of the noise right away. A plastic bin has tipped over and there is an old used inkjet cartridge inside, which has fallen noisily against the non-carpeted flooring. He walks over and picks up the fallen item and places it in a larger bin. He walks back to his office and says, “I suppose you’d better come in!”

Kevin is surprised when he hears David tell him to come into his office. He has not expected him to see him. He curses lightly under his breath – not even a swear word but still quite a big deal as far as he is concerned. The element of surprise he anticipated has now been lost.

David leaves the door open for him and Kevin follows him through into the beautifully decorated room. David sits down and, without a word, motions for Kevin to sit down in the seat across from him.

In the light of the office, Kevin and David face each other for the first time. They wear identical looking suits; the only difference being that Kevin’s is lighter than David’s. These gentlemen obviously know the same tailor. For a few moments nothing is said and it is Kevin who finally breaks the silence.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I called by tonight?”

“Not at all!” David replies. “I have a good memory for dates.”

Kevin nods. Today is an anniversary that affects both of them.

David, who had been sitting up straight, slouches forward in his chair and clasps his hands together. “Kevin, you know that the answer is still no don’t you? I mean you’re not coming here to me tonight thinking that I would have some sudden change of heart because of the date?”

Kevin flashes a dangerous smile at David. “I don’t know why you’re fighting this. You’ve read the same books that I have. You know where you belong.”

“Let’s just say I’m not a hundred percent sure of that yet.”

Kevin looks completely humourless now. “You must know I am getting pretty desperate now. People are beginning to question my decision.”

“You can leave!”

Kevin laughs at this but there is not a trace of humour in it. “And where would I go? You seem to be the only person who can survive in the middle.”

“You wouldn’t be alone. I could help.”

“That’s a backward step David. You should be coming to me, not me to you. We both know that.”

“Kevin I can’t help you. Not right now, anyway”

“It’s reaching the stage where I am going to have to take more desperate measures.” Kevin waits for the answer with baited breath.

David sits straight again. His smile is even more dangerous than the one Kevin has displayed moments before. “Was that a threat?”

Kevin stands up. “You can take it whatever way you want.”

“Sit down!” David orders.

Before he even knows what he is doing, Kevin is back on the seat.

“Let’s get one thing straight. You do anything that compromises me or my employees and not only will I not join you, but I will destroy you…”

Kevin looks angry. “Is that any way to talk to a friend?”

“You ceased to be my friend the moment the thought to ‘Take more desperate measures’ crossed your mind.”

Kevin’s mouth dries up. David is not joking. He has fucked this meeting up.

“Now leave. I don’t want to see you here again. The next time we meet will be on my terms.”

Kevin stands up again and walks out of the office. He doesn’t look back but gets out as quickly as he can, simply out of the fear that his legs are going to give way underneath him.

2.

Tuesday 27th April 2010

0:04

Gary Ingalls, one of the employees of David Oswald has just stepped through the door of his house, expecting to have to apologise to his girlfriend for coming in so late from work. He is surprised when he discovers that he has managed to get back to the flat before her.

He had been the last person to leave the office having got into a conversation with David before leaving for the night. David has a habit of keeping people hanging onto his every word and making them lose track of time.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that Gary stays working for the man despite all the personal risk.

Gary is a computer programmer. He was not long out of University and had landed on his feet with the highly paid job at Progression. He found out quickly just why the job was paying so well.

It had taken just under a week. There were three employees then instead of the five David had now – Gary and two women called Alice and Belinda. He liked them both from the start but he sometimes worried about Alice. She could be a little volatile. Belinda was very funny and more his type of girl. He sometimes wondered if Isabelle had not been on the scene if he would have ever got together with her.

David took Gary into his office and had told him that there was actually a little more to the company than he had initially led him to believe in the interview. He told him that there had been a few carefully structured questions in the interview, the answers to which had secured his position in the company. Gary did not have a clue what he was talking then.

“I was kind of hoping that we could push you into this a little more slowly but it seems that you’re going to have a baptism of fire…”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

And so Gary had been forced to call his girlfriend and tell her that he was working late that night. It was not a lie. But that was just the beginning of the life of deception that he had found it was easier to live than to tell her the truth. She couldn’t handle the truth.

He was very concerned when he got off the phone and saw how serious Alice and Belinda were. He understood then there was a good chance that the job paid so well because they were going to do something illegal that night. There was no way that he could ever have been ready for what was actually going to happen

In hindsight he wondered what the carefully structured questions that David had talked about that made him a “suitable candidate” for this line of work were. He tried to remember the interview and could not think which answers would have led him to believe this.

`But the first thing he learned abt David Oswald was that he was never wrong or it was so rare an occurrence that Gary didn’t even notice.

They had gone in David’s car and Gary had been allowed to sit in the front even though Belinda called shotgun. He soon saw why David had wanted him in the front.