‘The good name of the bank, in difficult financial times, is of paramount importance. Perhaps, Jago, you would use the rest room to tidy yourself. Thank you.’
He pushed himself away from the desk. His own cubicle was minute but neat, with no decoration. Others had photos of loved ones or pets, or postcards fastened to the low walls beside their screens. He had nothing personal. He had already volunteered to do the Christmas Day shift – the Gulf markets would be open, as would Tel Aviv and parts of the Far East – and watch over the figures. Hannelore would have taken him to Stuttgart for Christmas with her parents. He kept a washbag in the low cupboard at his desk. He was reaching for it.
Wilhelmina’s voice was quiet: ‘Was the client upset because I didn’t come myself?’
‘She understood, Wilhelmina, that a really serious situation caused you to cry off the meeting, almost life and death.’
He went to wash. Had he spoken with irony or sarcasm? She wouldn’t have noticed either. The entertainment was over and the team were busy again at their screens. She wouldn’t have noticed his rudeness because she didn’t know him well enough. Who did know him? Fewer people than he had fingers on one hand. That suited him. It was the way of the streets of Canning Town, where he came from and where old habits clung. When he had washed he would go back to work, and tomorrow would be another day. It would start with a seminar on sales tactics: a kick in the backside against complacency. The captain of finance, at Canary Wharf, who might have boasted about giving a chance to ‘youngsters from the other side of the tracks’, had said, ‘Jago, I’d like to leave you with this. The two most important days of your life are the one on which you were born and the one when you find out why you were born. What is your destiny? Think about it.’ He still didn’t know the answer. He scrubbed his face, cleaned the cuts and looked in the mirror to gauge the success of the repairs. He did not see himself: he saw the girl, the curl of defiance on her face, and heard her scream. He had been challenged.
In a building behind a security fence, set back from Felixstowe docks, a phone rang. He answered it, heard serious excitement in the voice of the young woman who had called him. She had a ‘customer’ and his Class-A consignment. Her voice on the phone was shrill in his ear. ‘You should get yourself down here, Carlo, it’s a real nice one.’
He had been ‘Carlo’ since the overseas posting.
‘Just finishing a coffee, if you don’t mind.’
He’d heard the snort down the line from Dooley Terminal, where the lorries came and went, and the ferries were roll-on and roll-off. ‘Bring me one, two sugars. I think it’s a cracker.’
‘I’ll be there when it’s convenient.’
‘Thanks, Carlo.’ She’d have known he’d be out of his office, in the main administration section of the Customs area, and heading fast for the dockside bay where the vehicles were subjected to a thorough search. Usually it was intelligence from abroad that dictated which were pulled aside and given the treatment, but it was always Christmas come early when the ‘uniforms’ were allowed to choose which to wave down and put through the wringer. She’d known he’d burn the rubber to get there fast.
He had gone to Rome, drugs liaison officer attached to the embassy, as Charlie. He had done four years there, should have been three but the replacement had suffered a last-ditch angina attack so the man in place had been asked to ‘endure’ another twelve months in the Eternal City. No complaints, almost fulsome gratitude to Human Resources at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. In Rome, immediately after arrival, he had become Carlo. He was Carlo with the guys in the Guardia, the Polizia, the carabinieri squads, throughout the embassy, and had brought it back with him to Felixstowe. He was a bit of a legend. It was whispered among the younger uniforms that Carlo had gone almost native in Italy.