Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (6 page)

'You're missing your youth, Jack, that's all. And who doesn't? Do you think I want to be eating cold cabbage soup in a Bucharest basement tonight, blowing on my fingers so they're not too stiff to pull the trigger if my contact turns out to be setting me up? Do I buggery, but I still sometimes find myself wishing I was back there, wishing I was that person again, when what I'm really wishing is that I was twenty years younger. You don't want to be breaking into buildings, circumventing surveillance and playing dodge-the-Dobermann just to get a story for a newspaper that'll be wrapped round a deep-fried haggis by the end of the week, do you?'

Parlabane thought about it.

'I guess it should tell me something that it's the mention of deep-fried haggis that's got my juices flowing more than the B&E.'

'Exactly, old chap. And you certainly look like you could do with some junk food. I've never seen you look so disgustingly healthy.'

'I know. I got into a bit of a cycle after the stabbing. Started exercising more than I ever had before just to prove to myself that it hadn't done me any permanent damage. Plus I have to get my adrenaline fixes legitimately these days, so I've upped the ante on the rock-climbing. Physically speaking, I'm a disgrace to my profession.'

'Well, I just hope it doesn't extend to being on the wagon. I'm told this place has a rather choice wine list and I do believe our expenses are being met by our publicity-seeking hosts.'

'Trust me, Tim, if I was on the wagon, I'm damn sure what we're about to encounter would blooter me straight off it.'

'Oh come, come. Shake off that nasty cynicism, Mr Parlabane. It's the only thing holding you back from all the joy life has to offer. Let's have some fullblown Positive Mental Attitude.'

32

'Yes, sir, Mr Vale. I'm opening my mind wider with every mile closer you drive.'

'Well, that's the carpark dead ahead, so you better hurry it up.'

'I'm getting there, really I am. I can feel it starting to channel through me. There are no problems, only solutions. There are no strangers, only friends I haven't met yet. I am ready to learn, ready to be moulded. I'm feeling empowered. I'm feeling pro-active. Goddammit, I'm feeling ready to stick some David Gray on the stereo and scatter my shrivelled cynicism like ashes as the new me rises like a Phoenix from the. . . oh fuck, who are these bastards?'

'Looks to me like our fellow constituent ingredients in Ultimate Motivational Leisure's great team-building recipe.'

'Not a promising start. I haven't met any of them yet and I already want to kill that one there for wearing shades on his brow in October, and at the very least disembowel whichever one owns the BMW X5 with the "Fair Fuel for All" sticker. If those petrol bills are starting to bite, maybe you should consider driving something that gets more than two miles to the gallon and costs less than FORTY FUCKING GRAND.'

'Happy thoughts, Jack, remember, happy thoughts. Whistle with me, come on.'

Vale coasted the Land Rover into the picnic-area-cum-carpark, a wide oval of grey gravel and tree bark bisected by the road, which narrowed at the far side as it exited between two stone pillars. These each stood at the end of a low wall, continuing as a dry-stone dike and eventually, closer to the surrounding trees, wire fencing to denote the outer boundaries of the McKinley Hall estate. There was a large brass plaque on the left-hand pillar, elegantly inscribed with the name of the property, above a cluster of official tourist-board attributes.

There were already four other vehicles parked in the area, including the ostentatious urban wank-tank and a yellow minibus, which was sitting in front of the pillars and demonstrably preventing any vehicular progress into the estate. In front of it were a gaggle of fellow initiants into the rites and mysteries of UML, as well as a UML meeter-and-greeter, identifiable by his bright yellow company polo shirt, bright yellow company rainproof jacket and the obligatory clipboard. To the left of the vehicle, next to the side sliding door, was a collection of light luggage.

Vale killed the engine. Parlabane sighed deeply, then caught his eye and they both laughed.

'Those who are about to die salute you,' Parlabane muttered.

'Speak for yourself. I'm here to get hammered on Merlot and single malt.'

33

They climbed from the Land Rover and walked slowly towards the gathering, Parlabane distantly wondering what kind of noises a Geiger counter would be making around those yellow togs.

'Good morning,' hailed Mr Obvious, before checking his watch and correcting himself. 'Sorry, afternoon. Donald Baxter, Ultimate Motivational Leisure.'

'I won't call you a liar for the sake of five minutes,' Parlabane assured him, trying his miserable best to seem bouncy and outgoing. 'Jack Parlabane,
The
Saltire
. And this is Tim Vale. He's going to be taking the photies.'

Baxter extended a hand and shook each of theirs, briefly but firmly. He seemed warm but not over-ingratiating, which was a relief as Parlabane had set his cloying tolerance to its lowest setting. The guy, close-up, wasn't quite what Parlabane had been expecting. He looked passably lithe for his late thirties and seemed comfortable enough in what he was wearing to suggest he was no stranger to sportswear, but there was something of the indoors about his face, a pallid gauntness that spoke of cramped offices and communal fagbreaks round the basement entrance. A liberating career change, perhaps, God help us, from rat in the office maze to life-embracing activities zealot. Or maybe he would be handling the indoor headgames, all the 'If you were a colour, which colour would you be?' and 'We're on a desert island and we need to build a hut' stuff.

'You're here to slag us off,' Baxter said, grinning. 'Or that's what everybody's expecting, right?'

'I'm here to give an objective and impartial account,' Parlabane insisted, with the level of sincerity that normally accompanied remarks such as 'We'll keep your CV on file' and 'I won't come in your mouth'.

'Don't worry,' Vale said. 'I'm here to make sure he looks like an arsehole in the pictures, so the piece will be fairly balanced overall.'

'This is going to be written up for the paper?' asked a voice. 'I hope you've the budget to clear the image rights if I appear in any of the photos.'

It was the guy with the brow-dwelling sunglasses, which turned out to be Oakley Magnesiums, and which were not the only upscale designer detail about his person. He looked like he was wearing Parlabane's mortgage. No question the wank-tank was his too, which was an uplifting thought, as it meant there was one fewer person present he already wanted to kill.

'Rory Glen, The Reflected Gleam Agency,' he announced himself. The accent was schooled in Edinburgh, that marbles-in-the-mouth, speak-withoutmoving-your-lower jaw drawl that was either taught on the Lothian Posh Schools Official Syllabus or a post-op symptom of certain rugby injuries. Parlabane detected a hint of something else to it too, aspirationally trendy despite several generations of tweed-wearing in the bloodline. 'And this is Elizabeth Ford, also of Reflected Gleam. My, ehm, associate.'

34

Glen's ostensibly informal omission of Reflected Gleam's represented hierarchy was, Parlabane interpreted, intended merely to underline it. It was in the boss's gift to accord such apparent parity of status, his privilege to pretend to himself that he meant it. The woman acknowledged Vale and Parlabane with a smile so thin it was eligible for a Red Cross parcel drop, momentarily making Parlabane warm to the poor bugger who had to work with her. It was almost comforting to know there was someone present who wanted to be here less than he did.

'We're in advertising,' Glen offered, which did not come as a momentous surprise to Parlabane's ears. The guy announced it with a contented confidence that suggested he spent little time outside of circles where this was considered impressive. Parlabane resisted the urge to say: 'Wow, can I have your autograph?', remembering a period when he had once been bursting to tell people he was a reporter (though to draw a distinction, he had been half this guy's age at the time).

'Have you got the UML account?' Parlabane asked, switching to Best Behaviour Mode, a technique of affected credulous sincerity that was an essential skill of his trade.

'I'm not sure they could afford us,' Glen replied, laughing heartily at his own stab at what just about technically qualified as a joke. 'Nah, just kidding. We're going to do a deal soon, I'm sure, but we both agreed Reflected Gleam should sample the merchandise before we pitch.'

'So who's handled their PR so far?'

'Ian Beadie,' Baxter said, a glint in his eye as he looked at Parlabane. 'Big House Promotions.'

'Ian Beadie?' asked Glen. 'But I thought. . . oh, I see. Big House. Very good.'

'We're actually using a firm called Seventh Chime,' Baxter went on. Glen nodded sagely in a way that divulged he'd never heard of them and didn't want to admit it. Parlabane, for his part, was glad Baxter hadn't expanded on the unspoken significance of the Beadie remark, specifically his inconveniently publicised part in it. The former tabloid editor and self-styled PR Rottweiler was serving four life sentences for various counts of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, blackmail and attempting to pervert the course of justice. As he had just admitted to Vale, certain of those counts related to Parlabane, and their ultimate failure had not come before he got to learn what a sharpened steel ruler feels like when someone's using it to stir your guts. It wasn't a period of his life that Parlabane was very happy to recall, far less discuss with relative strangers, and nor would it have made his fellow guests garrulous in his company over the coming days if they feared he was on some kind of sting.

'And have they sampled the merchandise?' Parlabane asked. 35

'We're waiting for them, as a matter of fact.'

This confirmed something that had hitherto confused Parlabane, mainly, admittedly, on account of his own expectations. While Glen had wasted no time in announcing his terribly impressive presence and introducing his visibly reluctant underling, there had been no indication that the rest of the gathering comprised the remainder of a Reflected Gleam delegation, imminently about to be subsumed into one dynamic corporate consciousness. Instead there was a lot of shuffling of feet and nervy, polite eye-contact between people who were clearly not yet comfortable together and who were probably even less comfortable at the prospect of just how intimate they might soon be forced to become.

'So this isn't all Reflected Gleam folks?' he asked. I'd assumed, with it being a team-building weekend, that the point of the exercise--'

'It's a little more than a team-building weekend, Mr Parlabane,' Baxter interrupted. 'As I'm sure you'll find out. In fact, this would be a good point to advise you to leave your expectations in the back of the Land Rover. But you're right. In future normal practice, the UML Experience will be aimed at groups of people who work together. The point of the exercise this weekend, this being a promotional undertaking, is to demonstrate to our potential partners and potential customers that if we can bind together people who don't even know each other, then just imagine the effect on a group of committed colleagues. We'll be waiting until everybody's here before formal introductions. Saves a lot of confusion and repetition.'

UML Experience. Parlabane could hear the capitals and see the trademark.

'Is it part of the UML Experience to park a mile outside the hotel?'

'Actually, it's more like two miles, the way the road winds round the river, but yes. And at risk of bringing down some of the scorn you've got primed and ready to tip, I'll explain that it's for psychological reasons.'

'I had just assumed it was so we couldn't escape.'

'That's pretty close to the truth. When they enter the estate, we want people to forget the outside world, leave it behind along with their expectations and prejudices. Your car is a big link to that, a visual cue every time you catch sight of it. It can break the spell, if you like, which can be damaging at certain more delicate points of the process. This is one of those experiences where you only get back as much as you're prepared to give of yourself, and the presence of a vehicle that you know can swiftly return you to your everyday life is likely to distract from that commitment. It's also been proven by experience that people are more likely to bail out when the going gets tough if they can do so privately and unilaterally. You can bail out of here any time you want, but to do so you will have to get one of us to take you back across the river. You'd be surprised what a barrier that can be. It's amazing how people can find an 36

extra something in their locker when the alternative is admitting to everybody that they're giving up and running out.'

'How tough's the going going to get?' Parlabane asked.

'I can't say. You're all likely to find different aspects more challenging than others - but you'll
all
be challenged. Otherwise we'd just be wasting our time.'

'Wine list and
haute cuisine
notwithstanding,' Vale was compelled to add.

'I'd take nothing for granted if I were you,' Glen suggested. 'We might be on bread and water as a team punishment, or have to earn our meals like on BB.'

'BB?' Vale asked, apparently baffled.

'
Big Brother
. The TV show.'

Still Vale offered a blank countenance.

'Don't tell me you've never at least heard of it?'

'Mmm. Vaguely. Can't say it captured my imagination.'

'Oh, you're not one of these prudish types who gets all self-righteous about voyeurism and hidden cameras and spying on people?'

'Each to his own, I suppose,' Vale said with a poe-faced shrug. 'But I do find the idea a little distasteful.'

Parlabane, close to self-mutilation with his fingernails to avoid laughing, reminded himself never to play cards against the devious bastard. 37

Motivational Oratory (i)

'I appreciate more than anyone just how busy you all are, so I don't intend to take up too much of your time, but I do feel it appropriate to share a few words with you right now, on what I feel will be a very important occasion for our establishment.'