He looks and he sees and he says, “Oh.”
The members of the board shift in their seats. They wear matching suits, matching ties, matching shoes and matching faces. It’s not that they’ve been told to, it’s not a conscious decision; it’s simply that for the senior management of Burns and Stoke this is who they are. Or possibly just who they feel they have to be.
At the head of the table sits a man. Though the chairs run the length of the table, nevertheless without anyone shuffling their chairs or leaning away, there is a distance between him and the assembled board. And though he is dressed as they are, and sits as they do, and though some are sure they have seen him take a sip from his still, volcanic water in its perfect crystal glass, there is no denying that he who sits at the head of the table is different. Other. Apart.
“Oh,” he repeats, his voice a breeze that wafts down the table as gently as floating silk. “This is disappointing.”
On the wall behind him a film runs in grainy black and white. The camera looks at a door which proclaims AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY. DANGER–ELECTRICITY. It runs on a loop of nearly fifteen seconds, its gazed fixed. It films nothing, nothing, nothing; then out of nowhere a woman appears and rebounds off the door. She is young, and her hair is black streaked with blue, and she is surprised.
A moment later she rises to her feet, grabs the hand of someone not quite in shot and pulls the person away.
The man at the head of the table turns off the image with a remote, swings back round in his swivel chair, which is gross and black and bigger than himself, and softly repeats, “Oh.” Then his face twitches. His thin eyebrows contract over almost impossible pale blue eyes.
“Is disappointed the word I am looking for here? Does disappointed, as an adjective, carry enough weight to describe the sentiments I should express?” He turns to his nearest neighbour. “How does one express due concern and rage at the failure of an institution to protect its secrets? What do you think?”
“I think… disappointed is good?” she declares, eyes flickering across the table in search of something, anything to hold her gaze, that isn’t his eyes.
“You don’t feel it’s a little… weak? As in, how one might say–he is disappointed, she is upset, you are angry, and I am going to rip your head off and suck on your spinal fluids? Is that not the definition we are aiming for?”
“Maybe?” she stutters, gripping the edge of the table.
If the man at the head of the meeting notices her response, he doesn’t seem to care. “Disappointed,” he echoes, turning the word over in his mouth. “Frustrated? Concerned. I am concerned that this woman,” gesturing at the screen, “this woman who, from what I can see, has no significance whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, is interesting herself in our affairs. I am concerned that the Midnight Mayor continues to probe us despite the three-month golf membership we offered, which, I was assured, would be more than enough to guide him away from our affairs.”
“He doesn’t…” began one man, then wished he could swallow the words back down.
“He doesn’t…?”
“He… the Midnight Mayor doesn’t like golf.”
Silence. Then, “But everyone likes golf. People smile while they play it. They walk across well trimmed grass with their friends and they say, ‘Isn’t this nice?’ How does the Midnight Mayor not like golf?”
“He said it was… it was… it…” The unfortunate executive was breathing hard. “He said it was a stupid wanky game for lazy tossers and we could take our golf clubs and stick them.”
“Stick them?” queried the man at the head of the table. “Stick them where?”
“He seemed to think we’d know the answer to that, Mr Ruislip, sir.”
The man addressed as Mr Ruislip sir leaned back in his chair. He wrapped his long fingers around the back of his thin shell-like head and considered the ceiling. Then he said, “The Midnight Mayor is being difficult, but he can be contained. However, this business with Dog is… may one say unfortunate?”
“Unfortunate is good, sir,” stammered the woman nearest him.
“Unfortunate,” he repeated. “It is unfortunate that Gavin was disembowelled–yes, unfortunate is accurate, isn’t it, for it implies a negative attribute of fortune, so yes! And so it is indeed unfortunate that Gavin was disembowelled. Likewise it is regrettable,” he savoured the word, warming to his theme, “regrettable that Scott was decapitated, and most… most concerning that Christian has started hearing the howling in the night. But, ladies and gentlemen!” He straightened, pleased at his own conclusion. “Ladies and gentlemen, let us remember! The fact that you are all being dismembered, one at a time, only indicates how close we are to success! Indeed, the break-in of this unwelcome visitor, this woman, could also be taken as a sign that we are achieving our aims! Greydawn will be ours, and then we may all get our wishes and live… how is the phrase–happily ever after?” He sat back in his chair, beaming with delight. “And of course nothing shall stand in our way. Should we put that in a memo?”