Agency O Page 4

  Paul caught Sally’s look of horror that screamed - I smashed the glass ceiling for an office on the top floor and now I’m having to turn it over to Beardy-Weirdy, the Michelin Man, and Jack Sparrow? Fuck! Why me?

  ‘Mr Mackendrick would be so proud to see his legacy continue,’ smiled Richard. ‘And it’s all due to you, Sally. You’ve become part of the legend. Let’s do drinks some time. I’ll call you.’

  Sally nodded numbly and backed out of the room, visibly distraught at the thought she might never see it looking as pristine ever again.

  As soon as Sally was gone, Richard moved up a gear. ‘Okay,’ he said impatiently, ‘we haven’t got a lot of time. Let’s start moving this shit out into the corridor.’ He grabbed a corner of the desk. ‘Don’t just stand there like a bag of rotting lemons!’ he yelled at the three amigos. ‘Give me a fucking hand!’

  About a week after the shoot, Richard showed Paul a rough edit of two scenes. The results were surprisingly good. Paul had to admit that Richard and James had worked miracles on a zero budget. The location, the lighting, and above all the acting were highly professional, especially Richard as the deranged executive. Paul was also rather taken aback by how much the video looked like a glossy, 80s-style Hollywood thriller. Richard, uncharacteristically, let James take the credit for that.

  In quick succession they filmed two more short sequences and soon had three pretty good quality video clips that were broadcast-ready. After a few quick re-edits and adjustments, Richard uploaded them to social media, along with a few completed script extracts. Within hours they’d racked up thousands of views and comments. The Agency O project was going viral.

  4

  Richard dropped down onto the sofa next to Paul. ‘I now understand why the Nazis burned books,’ he groaned, red-faced from the walk home from work.

  ‘So, a good day then?’

  Richard kicked off his shoes. ‘This guy comes in. Geeky. Specs. Deep-fat fryer hair. Asks me if we had Rowling’s latest. He asks me.’

  ‘Oh dear. Bad move. What did you say?’

  ‘I suggested, politely, in a calm and measured manner, that reading may not be for him, and that he should consider a hobby more fit for a turd.’

  ‘I can’t believe they haven’t sacked you yet.’

  ‘They recognise my value and contribution to their growth strategy.’

  ‘Nothing to do with you being the only slave in the village, then? What is it, three quid an hour?’

  ‘Three fifty.’ Richard pulled his socks off and rubbed between his toes, releasing a long, contented sigh.

  Paul’s nose wrinkled at the smell. ‘Well, I’m glad that’s a relief for you.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘No, seriously, it’s good to have revolting Richard back. I thought we’d lost you there for a bit.’

  Richard looked at his friend for the first time since arriving home. ‘So … did you have a creative day?’

  ‘Pretty good. I tweaked Harvey’s interview scene a little. You want to see it?’

  Richard slid himself reluctantly off the sofa. ‘Let me have a shower first. I smell like a book jacket. And I’m in a Lynx Africa mood tonight.’ He stopped at the door. ‘That reminds me,’ he said, ‘there’s been another super-rich suicide. According to Dave at work, anyway.’

  ‘Dave the conspiracy geek?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Turns out some Swiss banker wanker was harbouring a secret smack addiction, and embedded himself in the side of one of their giant Toblerone bars.’

  ‘What?’ Paul swivelled his neck round.

  ‘Matterhorn, or whatever,’ said Richard. ‘His wife was banging his PA when it happened.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve got to shoehorn in that murky plotline. It’s got everything: sex, drugs, money, and a bloody great explosion at the end. Ooh, and we should buy some Alpen.’ Richard’s brain flip-flopped like a hyperactive three year-old feasting on a bucket of M&Ms. ‘I haven’t had a bowl of that since I chucked up all over – ’ A ringing in his pocket stopped him mid-reminisce. He pulled out his mobile and flew a couple of fingers over the buttons. ‘Fucking hell! Fucking hell! Fucking hell!’ With each word, he seemed to leap higher and higher.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ya fuckin dancer!’ Richard roared at the ceiling. He grabbed Paul by the shoulders and ruffled his hair. Paul pushed him away. ‘Get off me! What is it?’

  Richard shoved his mobile in Paul’s face. ‘Read that.’

  Paul squinted, trying to focus. ‘Read what?’

  ‘The email. The one from Alice Lowe.’

  ‘Who’s Alice Lowe?’

  ‘Just read the bloody thing! Oh, never mind, I’ll do it.’ Richard cleared his throat dramatically. ‘“Dear Mr Fleck,”’ he began.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Shush.’ Richard cleared his throat again and continued. ‘“Dear Mr Fleck. My name is Alice Lowe and I’m a senior talent scout for Omni Pictures International. We are currently seeking scripts for future productions, and are very interested in your work.”’ He turned to Paul. ‘Hear that? She’s very fucking interested.’

  ‘She never said “fucking”.’

  ‘It’s what she meant. Can I continue?’

  ‘Do you have to?’

  Richard ignored him. ‘“I was very impressed by your short videos and accompanying script extracts, and would very much like to meet with you to talk in more depth about your project. If you’d like to meet, please email to arrange a day and time that suits. Any evening this week or next would be most convenient, as next month I’m working out of our head office in Los Angeles and so will be unavailable. I look forward to hearing from you, blah blah blah, Alice Lowe, Senior Acquisitions Director, Omni Pictures International.”’

  Richard did a little dance on the spot. He looked like he either needed the toilet or was in the process of doing it. ‘Los Angeles!’ he shouted. ‘I told you we had a winner.’ Paul took the phone from him and read through the email again. ‘I think it’s a scam.’

  ‘What?’ Richard stopped dancing and threw Paul an ugly glare.

  ‘Working out of Los Angeles? Meet as soon as possible? Really?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Paul. Let’s just savour the moment for a minute or two, please.’

  Paul handed Richard his phone back. ‘Our names and personal details are all online. We’re just bait for con artists.’

  ‘But we’re Tor Fleck.’

  ‘Who the fuck is Tor Fleck?’

  Richard fumbled for the right words. ‘He’s … he’s a … I just thought we should invent a fictional author.’

  ‘A fictional author.’

  ‘You know, some Scandinavian writer, with a dark past. Create a bit of intrigue. Something a bit more interesting than just us.’

  ‘And when did you decide this?’

  ‘I dunno. It just came to me. It was like a vision.’

  Paul was puzzled. ‘Wait. So, you’ve taken our names off the videos?’

  Richard nodded. ‘Tor Fleck is now the creative genius behind Agency O.’

  ‘But he doesn’t exist!’

  ‘Exactly! But nobody knows that, except us. So he can be whoever we want him to be, even a woman!’ Wink. ‘And anyway, those Scandinavian depresso books and TV shows are all the rage.’

  Paul was confused. ‘So who, or what, are we in all of this?’

  Richard shrugged. ‘We’re his UK representatives, or his old student buddies. I don’t know. We’ll come up with something. Leave it to me.’

  ‘Now I’m even more worried.’

  ‘Hey, I’m an actor.’ Richard attempted a reassuring smile, but to Paul it just made him look like a condescending prick. ‘I make up people all the time. Well, once upon a time.’

  Paul still wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘What if this con artist actually is a movie exec? We’d be lying to her.’

  ‘It’s a harmless sting.’

  ‘It’s a fuckin
g fraud! We’re impersonating someone else.’

  ‘Lighten up, for God’s sake.’ Paul’s sanctimonious tone was clearly getting on Richard’s goat. ‘You can’t impersonate a fictional character.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘You said this was going to be legit.’

  Richard threw his hands up. ‘All drama is legit! Let’s just call this a dramatic conceit; an artistic pseudonym. Writers use them all the time. The thing is …’ Big grin. ‘… she clearly loves our script, or at least what’s she’s read of it, so if she finds out about Tor, I reckon she’ll love it – and us – even more.’ He paused, studying Paul’s face for a second. ‘And if she’s a con artist,’ he added, ‘then we’ve tricked a trickster. Game on, I say.’

  Paul let out another long sigh. ‘I can’t believe you’ve roped me into this.’

  Richard grinned. ‘You recognise a sure thing. Kudos. Look,’ he reassured, ‘let’s just go and meet her, okay? If we think she’s dodgy, we bail. And if any shit comes our way, we let Tor take the hit.’

  ‘Before we decide anything,’ Paul interjected, ‘can we look up this Omni Pictures mob and see what they look like, or even if they exist at all?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ agreed Richard. ‘Christ, I hope they don’t do that with Tor.’

  It only took a couple of seconds to find the website: Omni Pictures International dot com. Despite the name, they were small and independent, the films cited on the site mostly European Arthouse. But one or two were English-language productions. Paul recognised one of them. ‘I know this,’ he said, pointing. ‘It was pretty good. Picked up a few awards.’

  ‘See?’ smirked Richard. ‘Mr bloody sceptical.’

  ‘Yeah, but …’ Paul had already found another potential hole. ‘… how do we know this woman has anything to do with this company? She could have plucked the name out of thin air.’

  ‘Jesus!’ roared Richard, finally losing his patience. ‘Stop being so fucking old!’ He stabbed angrily at the Contacts tab and scrolled down the list of employees. Alice Lowe’s name appeared half-way down. Click. The link took him to her company profile page. There was no photo, but a short bio summarised her stratospheric career to date: a media degree from LSE, followed by a stint as a publishing assistant. Then a move to film production at Omni Pictures International, where, in the course of five short years, she had risen to the rank of Senior Director of Acquisitions.

  ‘That’s quite impressive,’ conceded Paul.

  ‘I feel so turned on right now,’ Richard quipped.

  Paul shook his head. He’d run out of arguments. ‘Okay, you win,’ he said. ‘We’ll go. But I’m still not happy about the name thing.’

  ‘Fuck it. It’s all a game.’ Richard lifted his hand to high-five his friend.

  Paul scratched his arse instead.

  5

  Paul left the library just before eight. He’d been there since two-thirty that afternoon, hunting down stories on executive suicides and mysterious deaths in the city, his time spent disappearing down one search engine wormhole after another. One story in particular grabbed his attention. It concerned a Marcus van Wooter, the chair of a multinational mobile phone company who’d thrown himself into a snow blower whist attending the World Economic Forum in Davos the previous January. The company he’d headed up had been doing exceptionally well, and there were no signs of any mental health issues. In fact, van Wooter was considered to be the sole reason the company was thriving, and he was well loved by all. His wife, Emily van Wooter, vehemently disputed the coroner’s verdict, at least initially, claiming her husband had been pushed into the snow blower, and that his death was an assassination. Later, to the surprise of everyone, she suddenly changed her tune, supporting the coroner and insisting her husband was a secret drunk and manic depressive. All very strange. And then – to add a final, macabre twist to an already sorry tale – a few weeks after whatever was left of her husband was cremated, a cleaner found Mrs van Wooter’s dead body floating face down in their rooftop swimming pool. This time the same coroner recorded an open verdict, and the case remained unresolved.

  A journalist who’d taken it upon himself to investigate the case – Pedro Silvestre (aka ‘Oregon Pete’ for some unspecified reason) – was later found dead, the victim of a botched home invasion; botched, presumably, because the unknown assailants were forced to flee empty-handed, scared off by a neighbour’s garage alarm. And yet the perpetrators had still found time to stab Oregon Pete multiple times and mutilate his body almost beyond recognition. Again, all very strange. The initial police investigation assumed it was the work of deranged drug addicts, but a number of details didn’t quite add up. Accusatory fingers were soon pointing at van Wooter’s business partners, with talk of Silvestre’s murder being a contract killing. Silvestre’s newspaper was also implicated in burying evidence the journalist had unearthed, with accusations being bandied around of huge hush money payments. All very, very murky indeed, and excellent fodder for script re-writes and improvements. Paul continued to search around the story, but couldn’t find any actual hard evidence of the dirt Silvestre had dug up on van Wooter or his business. It was clearly there, but hidden too far down the rabbit hole for Paul to reach.

  Out on the street, the temperature had dropped. Paul shivered and buttoned up his coat. Time to get home. Get warm. As he walked, he noticed someone keeping pace with him opposite, half-hidden by the failing light, a flat cap pulled low over the brow. A man, age indeterminate. Curious, Paul slowed down. The man changed his pace to match Paul’s. Paul stopped abruptly. Bent down. Pretended to tie his shoelace. The man hovered nonchalantly by a bakery window. What the hell? Paul stood up and changed direction, heading off at speed. The man turned and followed. At a crossing, Paul ignored the red light and dashed across, a car horn blaring as the driver swerved to avoid him. He glanced back. Nothing. He’d lost him. When he reached the underground station, out of breath and shaken, he stopped and checked behind him again. There was just a thinned-out mob of late commuters and early drinkers. Not a flat cap in sight. You bloody, paranoid idiot, he thought. Who’d want to follow you? He bought himself an evening paper and headed down the escalator to the platform.

  Squeezing into a packed carriage, Paul found a seat by the door. As the train shunted forward, he glanced through the bodies and bags and spotted a cap-wearing figure at the far end of the carriage. His head was hung low, his hand on the straphanger. The train lurched sideways, and the passengers shifted en masse, blocking Paul’s view. When he was able to look again, the man had gone, the straphanger taken up by a tall woman with an afro. Paul’s brain raced. Had the man followed him onto the train? Who would do that? And why?

  The next station prompted an exodus from Paul’s carriage. Although it wasn’t his stop, he followed the passengers out onto the platform, scanning the crowd as they passed. No flat caps. He leapt back onto the train just as the doors were closing. Didn’t Pacino do the same thing in ‘Carlito’s Way’? Richard would know. I’ll ask him, if I ever get home alive. Paul sat back down, feeling the sweat gather between his shoulder-blades and trickle down his spine. His eyes raced up and down the carriage in both directions. Christ, how suspicious do I look? But there was nothing to see. No flat cap. No menacing gaze. No hand stuffed in a pistol-shaped pocket. He sighed in relief and unfolded the newspaper he’d bought. The headline, in bold, prophetic, capital letters, declared CHAOS IN THE CITY! Paul couldn’t read it. His brain was still reeling. He got up and stood by the door, willing the train to reach his stop. A group of young drunks were visible through the window between carriages, prancing around, laughing loudly and swearing. One of them tried to pole dance on a handrail and fell into the aisle, causing uproar and drawing Paul’s attention to the figure the drunk had bumped against; a figure with his back to Paul; a figure wearing a distinctive flat cap.

  ‘Fuck!’

  An elderly woman sitting opposite the door shot Paul a look of disgust. Paul ignored her. ‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mo
n,’ he muttered as the train finally pulled into his station. The doors opened and he leapt out, running towards the exit, pushing commuters out of the way. Once outside the station he legged it across the main road and took a short cut through a couple of side streets to his flat, everyone he passed a possible flat cap-wearing assassin. He reached his tenement at last and bounded up the stairs, his underarms sodden. His whole body shook, and he struggled to fit the key in the lock. Get in!

  Footsteps. Footsteps on the stairs behind him. Oh, fuck! Paul dropped his keys. ‘Shit!’ The footsteps sped up. CLUMP! CLUMP! CLUMP! CLUMP! Paul scooped the keys up and stabbed the Yale at the lock. Yes! It clicked, and the door swung open. Paul jumped inside and slammed it shut behind him. A split-second later –

  Ding-dong!

  Paul’s heart leapt into his throat. He held his breath.

  Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

  Slowly, Paul leaned into the door and peered through the spyhole.

  The landing was empty. Not a soul. Paul counted to twenty and gently opened the door.

  ‘Boo!’ Richard yelled, springing up from the floor.

  Paul instinctively flung out a fist, narrowly missing Richard’s grinning face.

  ‘Jesus, Paul!’ Richard cried, ducking back in fright.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Paul shouted, his nerves shredded.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ replied Richard. ‘You could have had my head off, you fucking maniac!’

  Mrs McGilvray appeared on the landing, a liver-spotted hand gripping the lapels of her padded housecoat.

  ‘Would you two please mind your language? I can hear your obscenities from the kitchen.’

  ‘So sorry, Margaret …’ said Richard, bowing his head in fake reverence. Mrs McGilvray glared at him, not quite sure whether to believe him or not, then returned to her flat, slamming the door behind her with a ferocity unheard of in a five foot one octogenarian.

  ‘… you crack-faced old trout.’ Richard turned to Paul. ‘Did you see what she was - ?’ But Paul was nowhere to be seen. Richard eventually found him, in the dark, at the kitchen window, feverishly checking out the street below.