Smooth as silk the lift doors swept back, revealing the imposing entryway of Nick’s penthouse office floor. As he did every morning, he stared straight ahead, straight at her, and just as she did every morning, she held his stare and smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach her startlingly clear-blue eyes. They had entered into this ridiculous staring contest every day for the last three months and every day, without fail, she bloody won.
Now, Nick was not a man who took losing particularly well; in fact he was known for his stubborn tenacity. But there was something about the way she held his eyes which made him uneasy; which made him unable to stop himself from flicking his gaze away from hers by the time he had reached the front desk. Even after he had turned the corner to his office, he could still feel her eyes boring into his back, almost as if she was taunting him for his weakness, and it pissed him off. She was a sodding receptionist for Christ’s sake, why on earth did he feel intimidated by her?
‘What ho!’ Bertie boomed as Nick swept past his desk.
‘What ho, Bert,’ Nick called back with a half-hearted grin as he slammed his office door. He rolled his eyes when he was in the safety of his office; between Bertie, Ed and that bloody receptionist, he was being driven slowly insane. Snatching up the phone, he started punching in the number of the New York office, but after a couple of failed attempts to get through he realized that he was so unsettled by the receptionwitch (he’d christened her that on the first day they had locked eyes), he couldn’t even dial a simple number. Everyone else seemed completely taken in by her front: blonde bimbo receptionist – happy to gossip with the girls, charm all manner of clients and business associates, babble mindlessly about nothing. But Nick was convinced there was something off about her. Her smile never met her eyes, her laugh never quite rang true, the way she flicked her hair or filed her nails looked practiced and even slightly forced.
After the first month of morning stare-downs, Nick had decided to act on his rampant curiosity. He convinced the company’s industrial espionage expert to look into Miss Lucinda Quinn. The report that was produced was more than a little dull. It seemed that Lucinda had lived the most average life imaginable: growing up in Bognor Regis of all places, attending the local comprehensive and achieving very average grades, before a string of dead-end jobs and equally dead-end boyfriends. Clearly there was nothing in the least bit interesting about Miss Quinn, and his head of security had rightly looked at Nick like he was a little unhinged before handing over the slender file.
From then on, unwilling to make any more of a fool of himself, Nick had ignored his suspicions, and attempted to ignore her. One slight hitch in this plan was that she stayed late in the office every night, her excuse being that she needed to study for her Open University course and shared a flat with a riotous group of girls, making that impossible for her at home. Nick had no idea what she was studying, and after the whole investigation debacle he had no intention of finding out. All he knew was that he not only had to enter into a stare-down on his way into work but also as he left, a state of affairs made worse by the fact that he had to suffer the entire ride down in the lift with her, which she invariably filled with pointless chatter about celebrities he’d never heard of, television programmes he had no intention of ever watching, and the exploits of her completely unexceptional and interminably dull family.
The weird thing was that despite her willingness to talk his ear off, and giving every appearance of a devoted employee, Nick somehow knew that she didn’t like him. This was not a normal experience for Nick; from a young age he had been able to charm every female in his immediate vicinity with ease. The fact that this vacuous female seemed completely immune to it was … odd. He also knew that she did not like lifts. His office was twenty floors up and he was an expert in body language. She tried to hide it, but he could feel the tension rolling off her as they descended together every day.
Determined to avoid a repeat of this torture for the fifth day in a row, Nick leaned forward and flicked through the contacts on his phone until he found Lila’s number. At least Lila didn’t bang on about everything under the sun or disconcert him with any penetrating stares.
She answered on the second ring (a fact that Nick barely noticed, having never had to leave a message on a woman’s answerphone in his life).
‘The Russians are here, boss,’ Bertie’s disembodied voice said through the intercom as Nick was wrapping up making plans with Lila – all of which she’d agreed to without complaint; even the weird request that she come and meet him at his office rather than the restaurant.
‘Send them through to the conference room,’ Nick said into the intercom, attempting to fake a level of confidence that he wasn’t really feeling. This meeting was absolutely crucial: if they couldn’t get these guys on board they’d lose a big part of the block of investment from Eastern Europe and might risk the site they were securing in Slovakia, setting them back by anything up to a year. The delay could come close to killing the project.
‘Ed,’ Nick bit out into his mobile as he dragged his jacket on from his chair, ‘where are you? The meeting’s scheduled for ten o’clock and it’s five past, you dullard.’
‘Oh, right,’ Ed mumbled, sounding vague and unconcerned as usual. ‘Well, you see, I had this idea and I just needed to thrash out some of the theoretical calculations before I could …’
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. Ed is brilliant, he told himself. Ed is a genius and this project needs him. You cannot kill Ed with your bare hands. ‘Just get the fuck up here, okay,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘Well, you see, I’m at a bit of a tricky point in the old calculations and I –’
‘Ed, there a four huge Russians here, all of whom are rumoured to have links with the mob, all of whom are scary in the extreme. You do not keep these people waiting. Even apart from the fact that they could twist you into a human pretzel as soon as look at you, there is also the small detail that if these guys say no then there is no project, right?’ There was a long pause on the line; Nick rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw in frustration. ‘Right, Ed?’
‘The mob?’ Ed whispered.
Nick sighed. ‘Ed, we’ve been through this, the problem is that you don’t listen to me. Sometimes when the lowly mortals of average intelligence but who happen to be paying your exorbitant salary speak, you need to listen.’
‘I’m on my way.’
When Ed did finally deign to arrive Nick was seated in the conference room after some awkward greetings had been exchanged with the four large Russians, all of whom looked as though they hadn’t cracked a smile their entire lives, and further that they could happily wrestle a bear to the death, bare-chested, in a Siberian wasteland and barely break a sweat. The fact that they were wearing suits contrarily made them seem even more menacing, their bulging necks barely contained within the straining shirt collars.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Ed shouted as he barrelled through the conference room door; then, catching sight of the Russians, he tripped over his feet and had to grab the edge of the table to steady himself, nearly ending up head-first in a less-than-impressed-looking Russian’s lap. Ed straightened up, his wide eyes taking in the wall of menace seated at the table, and he took a small step back, swallowing hard. ‘Uh … I … well …’ He nearly fell over again as he backed into the projector stand. Nick rolled his eyes. It wouldn’t be so bad if Ed was at least wearing a tailored suit like every other man in the room, but with his trademark disregard for any kind of convention he had chosen to wear an ancient ripped T-shirt with a faded poster for a lost Schrödinger’s cat on the front. His black hair was sticking up in all directions and his jeans looked like they were in danger of giving up the ghost and falling down his skinny hips at any moment.
‘Bertie, could you come in here for a minute,’ Nick said through the intercom whilst pulling on his shirt collar to loosen it. The Russian mumbles from the other side of the table were becoming more hostile by the second.
‘You called, Oh Great and Glorious Leader?’ Bertie said as he swept into the room, ignoring the atmosphere and smiling a broad, totally inappropriate smile at the Russians. ‘What ho, chaps!’
All four men turned towards a red-faced Bertie. Nick rolled his eyes for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. Bertie, in a three-piece suit, could have almost passed for normal if it wasn’t for the fact that the suit was tweed, and not only tweed but purple tweed. Who would buy a tweed suit? Leave alone a purple one? Bertie’s explanation had involved a ‘terribly attractive and jolly young lady who said it was just the thing.’ If ‘the thing’ was something to make Bertie look even more ridiculous than he already managed on his own, then Nick would have to agree. The Russians were staring at Bertie like his existence and his suit’s were not only confusing but highly offensive.
‘Where is the interpreter, Bertie?’ Nick said through clenched teeth, trying to retain his aura of calm as he felt a trickle of sweat fall down his back.
‘Ah … well, there might be a bit problem there, old boy,’ Bertie replied. ‘The poor bloke just rang, and from what I could make out, in amongst the vomiting, he –’
‘Find me another one,’ Nick cut in, giving in to the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.
‘Chto yebat’ zdes’ proiskhodit?’ the most menacing of the group barked out, lifting up from his seat to tower over Bertie.
‘Sest,’ a clear voice sounded from the doorway. Looking up, Nick’s eyes met a pair of familiar blue ones before their owner focused on the four angry men at the table. Surprisingly the man who had stood up shifted in discomfort under her penetrating stare, then dropped back down into his chair. ‘Vy sobirayetes’ slushat’ etikh lyudey . Vy soglasny s nimi . Vy utverdit plany.’
‘Pochemu?’
‘Moye imya “Goodnight”. Vy ponimayete?’
For the first time that morning Nick saw a flicker of emotion in the Russians’ expressions before their faces became carefully blank. What was she saying to them?
‘What is going on?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I heard you boys struggling from out there and thought I’d come and help out,’ Lucy said happily, her stern expression fading as she addressed him, morphing into the more familiar chirpy but vacant one Nick knew well. He frowned. ‘You speak fluent Russian?’
‘Of course,’ she said slowly, as if explaining things to a slow child. ‘That is why I got the job, after all.’
Nick had had very little to do with recruiting Lucinda. She had just appeared when he arrived back from New York after a month-long waste of time trying to negotiate contracts with the Americans (he was now resigned to them being the very last people on the planet to accept Ed’s breakthrough, and certainly the last to invest in it). When he’d asked who had recruited her, he had been offered some vague story about HR branching out.
Weird as this latest turn of events was, after the last uncomfortable fifteen minutes Nick was willing to do just about anything to cut through the tension and try to get the deal on the table. ‘Right, fine. Are you okay to translate? Can you keep up?’ he asked, and watched her cheerful expression slip. Her eyes became so cold that he actually had to suppress a shiver before she pasted a smile back on her face.
‘Of course – hit me.’ For a moment it sounded like she actually wanted him to physically strike her. Her head was tilted to the side and he thought he could see a challenge in her eyes; then he realized that she meant for him to start speaking.
He turned to the men opposite, who were now eyeing the new arrival warily. Bizarre.
‘Gentlemen, I understand you have concerns about the project; that there may be some conflicts of interest.’ Lucinda proceeded to translate and the Russians’ eyes narrowed. One of them leaned forward and spat out a tirade which Nick was quite sure featured a fair amount of swear words, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, an extremely derogatory reference to his mother. He glanced at Lucinda throughout this and noticed she was staring at the Russian, her head still tilted to the side and a bored expression on her face. After a couple of minutes of the Russian’s verbal attack she was clearly done.
‘Stop,’ she shot out (even Nick knew that ‘stop’ was the same in English or Russian). All eyes swung to her. With the sheer level of authority her voice carried, Nick was quite sure she could have cut off a world leader mid-tirade and the Russian man fell silent. She then leaned forward slightly and blanked her expression before she started speaking. Nick had no idea what she was saying, it was too quick to pick up anything. He even thought it might have been a subtly different dialect to the basic Russian he had attempted to learn last year. But what did strike him was her tone. She wasn’t ranting like the Russian man had been; there was no anger in her voice. If anything her speech was eerily devoid of emotion, but there was no mistaking the thread of menace it carried, and the temperature of the room felt like it had dropped a good ten degrees.
When it was clear she was done, one of the other Russian men started talking to her, spreading his hands in a gesture of frustration. She replied with the same tone, and, to Nick’s annoyance, they proceeded to all exchange words with each other for the next ten minutes.
When she was finally done she turned to him and smiled her fake smile.
‘He said he’ll listen,’ she told him, and Nick’s eyebrows shot up.
‘That’s all he said: “I’ll listen”?’
She shrugged but her mouth stayed firmly shut. Nick heard a strangled noise from his side of the table and glanced at Ed to see that his face was red and he was coughing into his hand to muffle a laugh. Nick turned back to Lucinda; taking in the cold light in her eyes, he scrubbed his hand down his face and smiled a fake smile of his own.
‘Fine,’ he gritted out. ‘Would you mind translating an actual conversation between us as a translator? That is, if it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Of course,’ she said with saccharine sweetness, and Nick didn’t know how she managed it but her smile dialled up a few notches whilst her eyes actually grew colder.
