– A bullying incident, goes Pike, in which you were reminded forcibly of your orphan status? Your ineligibility for fostering?
Craig Devon. The biology pond. How did he know?
– After which your family, he says, the adult members first, suddenly appeared? And offered you a solution?
Christ, he was a fucking mind-reader!
– And then, as a teenager, you discovered they might have financial possibilities? Is that how your little family network started?
– It wasn’t little, I snapped.
He didn’t reply to that. He just watched me, while I ate, which was all I could do, to buy some time, to collect my thoughts. I tried to do it slowly, but I was nervous, gulping big bits of snaily mushroom whole, getting all bejonkered with the chopsticks.
– Families are marvellous organisms, he went. He stopped and smiled, as though remembering something. And he was. – I myself had a mother who was a large and very important influence on my life, he said. My father being absent from the picture. (He had a fond-memory face now.) – My mother died, sadly, when I was quite young. Like yours.
– Well, I don’t remember her, I said. End of story.
– End of story? he said, smiling. I tend to think it’s rather the beginning.
I didn’t like that idea, so I concentrated on my plate while he went on.
– Losing one’s mother is a terrible shame, he said. A terrible shame for you, never to have known yours.
– What you don’t know, you don’t miss, I said.
– Do you really think that, he said. I don’t. My mother, for example – even though she died when I was young – taught me some very important lessons. (He leaned forward, almost like we were mates. Lowered his voice.) – It was at her suggestion, for example, that I joined the Corporation, said Pike.
– What, I went, puzzled. How come? It didn’t exist then.
Pike leaned back. His face had suddenly gone all faraway.
– She knew she was dying. But she was something of a strategist. She could see what lay ahead. She left me a sort of blueprint. An elaborate flow-chart, he smiled. She knew what interested me, and where my talents lay. And she recommended that, when I was an adult, I should join a large organisation which I respected. He grinned. – Wasn’t I lucky?
– You sure were, I said, and I take my hat off to your marvellous mother. Just think, without that blueprint of hers, you wouldn’t be here, would you, watching a fraudster eating sushi.
He seemed to like that.
– No, he laughed, I probably wouldn’t.
When I’d finished the sushi, and swished it down with bitter tea, he smiled again. Then with a sudden swift movement, like a magician, he leaned forward and whisked my backup disc from my shirt pocket. I know it seems crazy, but it felt like he was actually taking out my heart.
And he smiled. When he put the disc into his own shirt pocket, I felt tears of rage pricking my eyes. It seemed so unfair. It was only a backup, after all. Couldn’t I have kept just one thing? For old times’ sake?
– That had sentimental value, I said.
He acted as though he hadn’t heard me.
– You’re to be our guest at Head Office, he said.
– And if I say no?
– Then let me outline your options, Harvey, he smiled.
That’s when he drew a big zero in the air with his forefinger. A zero which framed his fake-apologetic face, a halo between us. And he smiled again, that same unreal smile, and I began to realise I was in deep shit.
BETRAY THE CUSTOMER AND YOU ARE BETRAYING YOURSELF
Wesley Pike flipped the CD ROM from his pocket, and handed it to Hannah. His arm grazed hers, and something snaked through her. His shirt was peppermint green today. He made her feel like a cringing insect about to be swatted.
– Society’s a big family, he smiled. A family, and a business. It’s something you’ll appreciate, when you look at what’s in here.
The label on it was handwritten, in thick marker pen, in an oddly firm script: THE FAMILY. The big brash capitals reminded Hannah of Tilda’s plastic pill-chest. Each drawer lovingly labelled. There was something childish about the capital letters. Something naive, mawkish.
Pike grinned.
– You’re right about the handwriting. The graphology analysis bears it out. A case of retarded development. Not unusual, I imagine, in Multiple Personality Disorder?
– I don’t know, said Hannah. It would figure, though.
To avoid looking at him again, Hannah turned over the CD ROM. There was more of the same handwriting on the back.
Cameron HOGG.
Gloria HOGG.
Rick HOGG.
Sid HOGG.
Lola HOGG.
Next to Lola Hogg’s name, there was a little green sticker of a heart, no bigger than an asterisk. She wondered what it meant.
Her eyes slid to the window. Outside, from this angle, you could see the Frooto building. Its little windmills, recently adjusted, sprinkled out their new theme tune on the breeze. If you strained your ears near an air duct, you could just hear it.
– They’re complex organisms, families, mused Pike. We all came from somewhere different, to get here. But we carry the child within us.
Hannah tried to picture him as a child, but could only think of a little creature with Wesley Pike’s adult face cracking its way out of an eggshell, like a crocodile. She glanced at him sharply; he was smiling.
– Hogg, she said, still looking at the CD. Is this a family, then?
– In a way, he said. They were created by Harvey Kidd, as aliases. Alter egos. He ran a fraud network through them. The usual system – it’s called teeming and lading in accountancy jargon. He’s a rather pathetic character. His background turned him inward.
Hannah fingered the CD, running a nail under the heart sticker. She picked it loose, and stuck it on the side of her desk, as she had seen Fleur Tilley do, surreptitiously, with snot.
– I suppose you could call all this – Pike gestured to the CD ROM – the result. He smiled at Hannah. – Psychopathology incarnate.
– Harvey Kidd, murmured Hannah, trying out the sound of it. And wrote the name, pointlessly, on her pad. She stared at the faint trace of adhesive where the little green heart had been. It, too, was in the shape of a tiny heart. She was to look for behaviour patterns, and clues to the personalities of the Hoggs, Pike instructed her. Provide summaries on the Hogg characters by Wednesday, and a full report by Friday. Examine them in relation to Multiple Personality Disorder. It seemed straightforward enough. As he spoke, Hannah stared at the CD ROM, and the word FAMILY danced before her eyes. She and Tilda counted as a family, she supposed. Together, they formed the smallest nuclear unit there was. Anything smaller, and you were just a person. Technically speaking, Hannah probably had hundreds of half-brothers and sisters dotted about the world. But a lab family didn’t really count. So much for relatives.
– I expect I can do that, she said when Pike had finished. She could feel the heat from his body radiating out.
– I’m sure you can.
The blood came to her cheeks.
– It’s what comes next that you’ll find more difficult.
She looked up then, and saw the amusement in his eyes. He was playing with her, like a cat. She squirmed inside, now horribly, shamefully aroused.
– And what does come next? asked Hannah, overcome by a dismal foreboding.
– You work with Kidd himself. Questionnaire him. He leaned closer. – One on one.