Mr Pokey paused. Kelly was staring at him. Very hard.
'Oh I see,' said Mr Pokey. 'Of course. I only have limited access to your file.'
'Let me make this clear,' said Kelly. 'Ours is to be a strictly professional relationship. You will tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it. Do I make myself understood?'
'Of course,' said Mr Pokey, drawing back in his chair.
'Good,' said Kelly, slicing steak and feeding it into her mouth.
'You're a very cool customer,' said Mr Pokey and leaning forward once more, he spoke in a low and confidential tone. 'You know how things are,' he said. '.We live in a state of perpetual fear at Mute Corp, never knowing who will be next. Who will be chosen? Every time I touch the keypad, or move the mouse, I know that it could be me next. We all know that. You know that. It can take you whenever it wants to. Anything that you touch could have a Mute-chip in it. Anything. Terrifying thought isn't it? But that's how we live when we know, isn't it? We know that once it has entered into us, we belong to it, and it can infect anyone we touch. Our loved ones. Our children. As it chooses. As it wishes. And that's why we worship it, isn't it? To beg it to spare us. And the fear never stops. Fear is part of the package. It keeps us on the straight and narrow path, doesn't it?'
Kelly wiped her garlic bread about her plate and then she munched upon it. 'I have to make a call,' she said. 'And then I have to go. Thank you for the lunch.'
'You wouldn't fancy a pudding?'
'I do fancy the pudding. But I have too much to do. I will see you tomorrow.'
'Oh,' said Mr Pokey. 'Goodbye then.'
'Goodbye.' Kelly smiled, rose from the table and vanished into the lunchtime cityfolk crowd.
'Cool, very cool indeed,' said Mr Pokey.
In a cubicle in the women's toilet, Kelly felt anything but cool. She leaned over the toilet bowl and was violently sick.
Derek might have been rather sick too, if he'd known just what lay in store for him over the next few days. But content in the inaccurate knowledge that he had just pulled off the beginnings of a major financial coup and was already ahead by at least five thousand pounds, and it was still only lunchtime on his very first day at this game, he smiled a very broad smile and ordered himself a double rum to follow the single he'd just downed to seal the deal with Leo.
Derek now sat all alone in the Shrunken Head. Lunchtime business here was definitely falling off. Perhaps the God-fearing Brentonians had all given up drinking now and were kneeling in their homes, hands clasped in prayer, awaiting their turns to be Raptured.
'Whatever,' said Derek. 'Well I've done my bit for the Company, today. I think I'll take the afternoon off.'
And with that said he left the bar and wandered out into the sunshine.
It was another blissful afternoon. There was no getting away from that. Odd things were occurring and big trouble might lie in store when the locals got wind of Mute Corp's plans for the borough. But the old currant bun really was shining down like a good'n and on such an afternoon as this and in such a place as this, to wit, Brentford, jewel of the suburbs, who truly could worry about what lay ahead?
You couldn't, could you? It was all too beautiful.
Derek took great draughts of healthy Brentford air up his hooter, thrust out his chest, rubbed his palms together, patted his dosh-filled pocket and grinned a foolish grin. Blissful. That's what it was.
The streets slept in the sunlight. There was no-one about. Siesta time. Shop awnings down, that cat slept as usual upon the window sill of the Flying Swan. Shimmering heat haze rising from the tarmac in the distance along the Baling Road. The smell of baking bread issuing from an open kitchen window.
Blissful.
Derek took a big step forward into the blissfulness.
And then he stopped himself short.
He was going to play his part in screwing up all this. In doing something dreadful to this blissful borough. He was going to sell it out. Sell it out to line his own pockets. That wasn't nice was it? That really wasn't nice. That wasn't decent, nor was it honest. Kelly wouldn't be pleased with him at all.
Derek made a puzzled face.
Why had he thought of her?
She was trouble, that one. She'd got him into all kinds of trouble. Derek stroked at his bruising. That one was bad medicine.
So why had he thought of her?
Derek shrugged. 'She needn't know,' he told himself. Til not tell her. I'll let her think I'm following the policy of inertia. Pretending to help Mute Corp, but doing nothing. Then I'll be as outraged as she is when the fences go up. And when the rubbernecking tourists arrive in full force. She needn't know. It will be OK.
'It will be OK,' said Derek and he took another step forward. 'But why did I think of her?'
Derek stopped once more and scratched at his head, his chest and finally his groin. 'Oh no,' he said. 'Don't tell me that. Don't tell me that.'
Derek shook his head. He had done that thing last night, hadn't he? Recited that poem. That poem dedicated to her. He had done it. He really had. And \vhy had he done it? Why?
'No,' said Derek, shaking his head once more. 'I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.'
A sparrow on a rooftop asked, 'Why not?' in Sparrowese.
'I'm not in love,' whispered Derek. 'I'm not in love with her. Not with that dreadful woman. I know she's young and so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful. Her eyes. Her hair. Her bosoms. God her bosoms. Imagine just touching them. And oh God, that mouth. Imagine kissing that mouth. But I'm not. I'm not. I'm not in love with her. I'm not.'
Derek took another deep breath. Through the mouth this time. 'I bloody well am,' said he. 'Oh damn.'
The object of Derek's affection had left the cubicle, the women's toilet and the pub and was moving at speed away from the Mute Corp building.
Kelly's face was pale and drawn. Her stomach ached and her shapely legs could hardly hold her up. Kelly felt wretched and frightened and sick, very sick indeed. Keeping up all the pretence was in itself quite bad enough. But it was what she had done to Mr Bashful that hurt most. She had pushed his hand down onto that computer mouse. Allowed the virus to enter his body. Forced him into the go mango game from which he would never emerge alive. She had condemned him to death. She had effectively killed him herself.
It was all too much. All too very much.
Through the sunlit London streets went Kelly. Elegant shoppers to left and to right of her. To forward and behind, dressed in the height of summer fashion. Frocks of dextropolipropelinehexocitachloride, tottering upon Doveston holistic footwear, smiling- and speaking Runese.
Who'd be next among them?
Next to play go mango?
Next to die at the invisible hands of a mad computer virus that thought it was a God?