I had no appetite for lunch, no Pret A Manger sandwich for me. I just sat at my desk brooding, but covered it up by typing up my notes and fact-checking on the Internet. Even though no one had brought it up or given me shit about it, everybody in the office was waiting to see how the meeting with Holcomb was going to play out.
At two o’ clock, Holcomb arrived with McLeish and a man and woman who were either assistants or handlers. They weren’t happy when I insisted I spoke only to Holcomb and McLeish. With the glass door closed, the boardroom was soundproof. I had Benjamin sweep it for listening devices half an hour before their arrival, per our usual protocol with sensitive cases.
Roger and Cheryl joined us, of course.
I told Holcomb everything. I started slow, walked him through Louise’s history, emphasized that she was a woman trapped in a man’s body who tried to correct that as much as she could, until she got too sick to complete her transition. I laid out how she had sex with him and saw his whole world drop away from his eyes. Things only got worse when I got to the part about Louise’s surrogate. Of course, he asked who it was. I explained who and most of all, why.
I told him that Louise loved him.
Have you ever seen a man completely lose his shit? Trust me, you don’t want to. This was a full-on wobbly. This was the Premier League of wobblies.
It was a gradual process, started with his lower lip trembling. I thought he might just burst into tears. If that was all that happened, it wouldn’t have been so bad. No, next came an awful keening sound from his mouth, escalating into a banshee howl of despair. He leapt from his chair like a jackrabbit, grabbed the vase on the table, and threw it at the wall, where it exploded like a grenade. He threw himself on top of the table and began to writhe like a man on fire, clawing at his shirt and face. This was beyond rational, all reason and restraint falling away from him, leaving only impulse and unfocused emotion. Every regret, every disappointment, every loss had he ever suffered was working its way through him. He was all gesture without control now.
McLeish was taken aback, but gathered himself into a single expression of impatient disappointment. Roger had a look of mild fascination on his face, then nodded to Cheryl. Cheryl stayed perfectly calm, walked to the door, and asked Ken and Clive to come in and help hold him down. The two handlers rushed in, stopped, and looked on in horror.
“For God’s sake,” LcLeish said. “Can’t you do something? It’s not as if he’s contagious!”
The man made a halfhearted move to reach for Holcomb, then hastily withdrew. Nobody wanted to touch a writhing, raving man. Ken and Clive rolled their eyes and strolled over to the table. They grabbed Holcomb by the ankles and pulled him off, took his arms, and proceeded to hold him down.
The rest of the gang just watched from the door with a look of gleeful Schadenfreude on their faces. Benjamin was all set to film it on his phone if Cheryl hadn’t come back from Roger’s office and hissed at him to put it away. She had a first aid kit in her hands that Roger took, thanking her gingerly for bringing it.
Roger produced a syringe and loaded it up with sedative from a small vial in the kit.
“Christ, he ain’t half-slippery,” Ken muttered as he struggled with the squirming Holcomb.
David sidled up to me.
“Jesus, you broke him,” he whispered. “What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Somehow,” Marcie said, “I don’t think it’s setting him free.”
“Hold him steady, lads,” Roger said as he approached Holcomb with the syringe.
Ken and Clive had him bend over the table and, with one hand, yanked Holcomb’s trousers down just enough to expose the top fleshy bit of his bum. With one deft move, Roger plunged the syringe into Holcomb and injected him with the sedative. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time Roger had done that here in the office. That he knew to keep a syringe and sedative in the first aid kit spoke volumes.
It took about a minute for the drugs to take effect, and Holcomb gradually stopped screaming and struggling. Ken and Clive carried him to the sofa in Roger’s office while Roger conferred with McLeish.
“Do you have a private ambulance service you like to use?” Roger said.
“Whose is more discreet?” McLeish asked back. “Yours or mine?”
“Mine.”
“We’ll use yours.”
Roger turned to Cheryl.
“Be a dear and give Charles a call, will you?”
The ambulance arrived in fifteen minutes. They knew not to use the siren, and they brought the gurney up via the building’s service entrance.
As they strapped Holcomb in, I spoke to him.
“Remember that place? That green and pleasant land? Go there now, and stay there as long as you like.”
Through his haze, Holcomb nodded, and the medics carted him off.
“Well,” McLeish said. “That could have gone better.”
“Did you know he was this . . . unstable?” I asked.
“We hoped he was made of sterner stuff. When we vetted him for the leadership position, we were just relieved that there was no pig-fucking in his background.”
“Well,” Roger said, “better to find out now than after you put him up at the next general election, eh?”
“Indeed,” McLeish muttered. “Oh well, back to the drawing board. Next one we pick will be married. And to a real woman.”
You transphobic prick. Thanks for reminding me why I’ll never vote for you lot.
“God willing.” Roger smiled.
McLeish shook Roger’s hand.
“Thank you for your work,” McLeish said. “They were right about you. Certainly earned your reputation.”
“Best of the best, that’s us,” Roger said. “And absolute discretion.”
“Do bill us for the damage today.”
I could tell Cheryl was already adding up the broken vase and the other repairs from Holcomb’s rampage, mentally laying out the invoice.
McLeish shook my hand, as well—respect for a job well done.
And with that, he and the handlers were gone.
My karma was going down the drain again.
I really hoped I would never land a case where a client thought he was getting fucked by his dead girlfriend again. But in this office, who could be sure?