I’d been online at my desk at home, setting up Web pages for the business, when Reid had called the previous week. After we’d exchanged pleasantries he’d said, ‘You coming up to this science fiction convention thingie in Glasgow?’
‘Yes! I’ve booked a stall there. Space Merchants. You coming?’
‘’Fraid not,’ he’d said regretfully. ‘Can’t manage the time off work. But – I’d like to meet you after it, in Edinburgh.’
‘That’s a nice idea, but…’
‘No, no, wait. It’s not just to see you socially. I’ve got a…a business proposition for you. Something you might be really interested in.’
‘Oh well, that’s different. What is it?’
‘Um, I’d rather not say at the moment. Sorry to be so cagey, but honestly this is serious and it could be well worth your while. We’ll just go out for a few drinks and talk it over. You can crash out with me, or in a hotel if you like – I can pick up the tab, and the fares –’
‘No, there’s no need –’
‘Really. You’ll understand when we’ve talked about it, OK?’
Intrigued at the thought of him offering me a job in insurance, I agreed to meet him. It must have been the heat.
Reid sauntered up from the Princes Street end of the bridge, for some reason the opposite direction from the one I’d expected him to.
‘Hi man, glad you made it.’
‘Good to see ya.’
His hair had grown long again. His clothes were casual but refined: soft black chinos, blue button-down shirt, silk tie, dark linen jacket. I felt a bit of a scruff in my denims and trainers and astronaut cut.
‘You’re looking smart.’
‘Thanks.’ We’d started walking in the same direction Reid had been taking, towards the Rock. ‘You’re looking…well.’
We both laughed.
‘It’s an illusion,’ I said. ‘Actually I feel a bit wrecked. Too many hangovers in the past four days.’
‘Ah, you’ll soon drink it off,’ he said. ‘But first – have you eaten?’
My stomach sharply confirmed that I hadn’t. ‘Not for ages,’ I said. We paused at a junction where the traffic came four ways. Reid glanced around, and behind him.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘Viva Mexico!’ This turned out to be a Mexican restaurant halfway up Cockburn Street and down some steps. It was quiet. Reid nodded at the waiter. ‘Table for three, please.’
The waiter guided us to a table well clear of anyone else and we sat down. Reid ordered three tall lagers. I looked around while he studied the menu. The faces of men with wide hats and long rifles glowered back at me from brown-and-white photographs of executions, funerals, weddings, train wrecks…I was scanning the wall idly for any photos of heavily armed christenings or graduations when the lagers arrived and Reid looked up.
‘How did the Worldcon go?’
‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘So I’m told. I was in the dealers’ room most of the time. Space Merchants did well, though.’
‘That’s your business?’
‘Yes.’ I took out my wallet and passed him one of my remaining cards, with email address, Web site, phone number and PO Box. ‘A coupla years ago I was looking for space memorabilia, videos of Earth from orbit, stuff like that, and I was surprised how hard it was to find. Especially all in one place. So I thought, hey, business opportunity! Started with mail order ads in SF magazines, then hawking stuff around conventions. Seems to have taken off now.’
Reid smiled. ‘Lifted off! Good. Cheers.’
‘Slainte.’
I glanced at the third glass fizzing quietly by itself.
‘Who’s your absent friend?’
‘Along any minute. Relax. Still smoking?’
‘Back on them, I’m afraid.’ Thanks to you, I didn’t say.
He passed me a cigarette.
‘How’s Annette?’
‘Fine. Sends her love.’ He didn’t blink.
‘And Eleanor?’
I couldn’t help grinning all over my face. ‘Oh, she’s great. Sulks in her room listening to CDs and reading trash, most of the time, but basically she’s a fine young lass.’
‘Didn’t she want to go to the convention?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘She sort of shrugged when I asked her. Annette wanted to save up holiday time for later in the year, and I think in the end Eleanor preferred to stay with her Mum. I didn’t want to risk taking her along and finding she didn’t really want to go and put her off for life.’
‘Like those demos, eh?’ Reid indulged a reminiscent smile.
I grimaced. ‘Tell me about it…Annette and her “peace-fighting”! When Eleanor was thirteen she tried to join the friggin’ Air Cadets!’
‘What stopped her?’
‘Not us,’ I assured him. ‘Defence cuts.’
The chair to our left was suddenly occupied by a slim middle-aged man, dressed similarly to Reid, with thinning black hair combed back. He briskly picked up the menu and nodded to us both. The contact-lenses in his brown eyes made him blink a lot, as if the air were smoky. I stubbed out my cigarette.
‘Evening, gentlemen.’ He raised his pint and sipped.
‘This is Ian Cochrane,’ Reid said. ‘Works in our legal department. Ian, this is Jonathan Wilde.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Wilde.’ His grip was clammy, perhaps from the condensation on the glass, but his thumb pressure was firm.
‘Jon,’ I said, nodding and wondering abstractedly if the handshake I’d just received was Masonic.
‘I’ve heard a good deal about you, Jon,’ said Cochrane. ‘Most impressed by your article on Brent Spar.’ He caught a waiter’s eye. ‘Shall we order?’
His accent and manner had that Scottish upper-middle-class tone which sounds more British than the English. He ate selectively and talked trivially while Reid and I satisfied our hunger. His second drink was mineral water. At that point his talk ceased to be trivial.
‘“It’s time somebody hammered home to people the difference between the bottom of the North Sea and the bottom of the North Atlantic,”’ he began, quoting my article – a short column in a Sunday paper’s ‘Dissenting Voices’ corner – from memory. ‘“One’s the floor of a seriously polluted larder, which should be cleaned up. The other’s Davy Jones’ Locker…” But nobody’s hammering it home, that’s your point, eh?’
‘Yup,’ I said, scooping up guacamole with a taco fragment. ‘So Greenpeace gets away with murder.’
‘Murder indeed,’ said Cochrane. ‘But who’s going to take the word of an oil company against a bunch of selfless idealists?’
‘Me,’ Reid said.
‘Ah, but you’re not typical, you see,’ Cochrane reminded him. He turned and blinked thoughtfully at me. ‘David, as you probably know, is our IT manager.’ I nodded; I hadn’t known. ‘He attended a meeting of a policy committee where these matters were addressed. We weren’t involved in this Shell fiasco, thank God, but as an insurance company we’re potentially rather exposed to similar situations. One of our senior managers remarked, in passing, that it would be very…conducive to a balanced public debate, if there were a grassroots organisation campaigning for industrial development, instead of against – “A Greenpeace for the good guys”, I think he called it. And the possibility was raised of, ah, materially encouraging an initiative in this direction.’
Reid leaned forward. ‘Hope you don’t mind, Jon, but I said I knew just the man for the job.’ He leaned back. ‘You.’
‘To start an anti-environmentalist organisation?’ I shook my head. ‘They have ’em in the States. “Wise use” and all that. They’re seen as mouthpieces for big business. Sorry, chaps. Not interested.’