The bar is full to bursting when I am shown to my table, which is a relief. This sort of thing is a lot harder when you’re on your own save for a couple of drunks in the corner and a bartender who stares at you.
But Newcastle is buzzing tonight. Everyone and her dog is out on the town. And this place is one of the fancier ones, with a view over the river to the remains of the railway bridge; the clientele ranges from a boardroom’s worth of straight-laced civil service types all the way to what seems to be a delegation of elderly biddies from the local Party office. No stags, no hens; not these days. Plenty of dates, though. I order a gin and tonic and settle in, reach for my phone.
His name is Felix, apparently. His photo is a little old; it has him on a beach somewhere exotic, so I peg it at maybe six or seven years ago. Fair enough. These days people avoid putting recent photos on their profile. The old ones let us pretend. This one shows a grinning young man with dark skin and tidy dreads, wearing a backpack and very little else. He looks like a decent type. Plays bass in a band called The Winsomes, who have been doing poorly recently (judging from their socials) but really don’t sound that bad – his friend the guitarist is particularly talented. Works a day job teaching Spanish and French to children; has a cat.
All very above board. No negative vibes at all.
Weird that they’ve picked him out for me, then, but there must be a crack somewhere.
My gin and tonic arrives – they still have lemons! the luxury – and as I take my first sip I see him. What a shame – he’s cut his hair short, the dreads are gone. So is the carefree smile; this man is worried. Scratch that, he’s stressed out of his mind. He stands in the middle of the corridor getting in the waiters’ way and looking around desperately. Poor dear – this date really isn’t going your way, is it. I sip, think about opening my notebook. Not yet.
Then his face lights up and he starts making his way across the bar. He’s seen someone. It’s a little blasé for me to just swivel around and find out who, but I pretend to be typing into my phone and angle the selfie camera just so. It’s a woman in a red silk shirt. Maybe late forties, early fifties. Snip snap, that’s a couple of shots for the album. She doesn’t stand to greet him when he arrives, but shakes his hand. Business not pleasure, then.
The interesting bit is I feel like I’ve seen her before. I’m scouring my memory for all the local regulars but am drawing a blank. The quality of the selfie photos isn’t good enough for me to get a proper look. I’ll need an excuse to get closer.
“Have you decided, ma’am, or are you still waiting?”
The waiter is standing over me with a notepad. Crap – I was on another planet. “Er – I think my friend’s gotten held up,” I say. “Mind if I wait a little longer?”
He nods and leaves. Did he see me using the selfie camera? Hopefully just thinks I’m live-tweeting a disastrous date. I glance at the menu so I know what to say when he comes back. Then I turn my attention back to Felix and his mysterious friend.
The waiter’s made me miss their introductions, which is frustrating. But probably recoverable; they’ve only just finished the small talk. All I’ve missed is her name.
I’m a little out of range for most of it what with the hubbub of conversation around us, and his back is to me, but I can see her lips moving:
“…understand the weight of the situation. My friends don’t like being drawn into business that puts them at risk, and everyone else at risk.”
Not taking my eyes from the phone, I reach into my bag and pull out my notebook.
“With that in mind, I’m afraid we will need additional assurances before we move forward.”
Felix says something. I miss most of it but the final word is “please”.
“I appreciate that, Mr. Unigwe, but what we are actually looking for is payment up front.”
I’m now going full shorthand in the notebook. The nice thing about shorthand is it gives me an excuse to fill my notebooks with random nonsense like notes on architecture or romantic political poetry. The more junk is in here, the harder a job it’ll be for anyone to translate the bits that matter – if, that is, they realise those bits are in here at all.
Felix is raising his voice now. “I can’t – I don’t believe it. We agreed. Half before and half when I get there.” I? Interesting. Not goods. “You people are vultures. You don’t care. You just want to squeeze as much out of us as you can. Without ever doing your part of the bargain.”
Touchy, touchy. Felix is shouting too loud, the panic leeching into his voice. Even the doe-eyed men on a date at the next table tear their gaze away from each other to look at him.
Red Shirt Lady thinks so too. She doesn’t so much handle him back into his chair than raise one eyebrow in exquisite distaste until he’s so embarrassed he quietens down. I think I'm beginning to like her.
“There might be other ways we can make this work,” she says. “A deposit held by a third party, for instance. One who will complete exchange once they receive proof you have arrived in Brimwick.”
At last. He wants out! How interesting. Most people who try to defect just set off in a car, on a bicycle, or on foot. Felix is clearly doing a better job at planning than that.
What’s more, he’s not trying to get to Scotland or on a boat. He’s actually making for Brimwick. The borderland capital. The city-state of the in-between. I can’t think why he’d want to go there. It has neither England’s stability nor Scotland’s brimming wild promise. Last I heard they had famine there, after we stopped exporting to them. What’s it got that you’d want?
I’m not getting anywhere. I need a better close-up photograph – one with the both of them recognisable, something which will give the analysts something to masturbate over. Leaving my coat on the chair but taking my bag, I wander over towards their table, looking lost. I call this the “sorry, where are your loos?” move.
As I pass their table I hoist the bag over my shoulder and as I’m doing so take several photos in quick succession through the zip. This would’ve been so much easier with a proper bit of kit, with a high-speed shutter and a button that doesn’t need me to be bent over at a funny angle. But the current vibe in the office is that we must carry no kit that a civvy wouldn’t have on them at any given time. They pass it off as agent protection but I suspect it’s mostly cost-cutting.
Red Shirt Lady looks directly at me.
I look away but my heart is pounding. Did she notice me? Have I frightened her off? She’s already back to her conversation with Felix, who’s earnestly naming dates in a few weeks’ time.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
The waiter again. Bastard. “Sorry, where are your loos?”
He gestures towards the enormous glowing sign on the opposite side of the bar that says TOILETS. “Just over there.”
“Right. Thank you.”
Well, I have to leave Felix and his girlfriend now. I take my sweet time over it and trip over a chair leg on purpose but I don’t get anything else of worth while I’m at it. Felix is still trying to steer the conversation towards business, but she’s staying noncommittal. He hasn’t spotted the tonal shift at all.
From the ladies’ I punch a message into my phone to say we will in fact be needing a taxi and giving a rough description of Felix and red shirt lady.
But when I get back to the bar Felix is on his own.
Shit.
Her glass is still half full and he’s not going anywhere, so she probably said she was leaving for a moment and just ditched him. Poor scrub. An amateur. He didn’t really have a cat in hell’s chance of making it across the border even if his neighbour hadn’t shopped him and put me here.
Look, mate, it’s nothing personal.
But my work is done. I leave a hundred note on the table and leave.
As I go, the waiter watches me warily from the other end of the bar and mutters something in his colleague’s ear. Well done, sir, you’ve figured me out. I will probably find it more difficult to pass next time I’m here; maybe one chef whom everyone knows has particular connections will be quietly tipped off to develop a nasty cold and not come in to work today. But having the staff recognise you sometimes carries advantages. They let you in to the back areas; they look the other way when you bug a table, and they avoid asking questions. I like the shine of fear on their faces when one of them recognises me. It gets me up in the morning.
In fifteen minutes, Felix Unigwe will be met outside the bar as he leaves, by a man holding an MSS badge with between two and five uniformed coppers behind him. He will be handled into a van and taken to the station where he’ll be roughed up a little while he sings them the same song I just heard. Maybe he’ll tell them everything. Maybe he’ll stay proud – if he does, it’ll take longer. Things are pretty relaxed at the moment; they’ll probably let him go after a day or two, tops. Though I suspect afterwards he’ll have difficulty playing the bass.
I’ll go home, type up my shorthand into a proper report, one which doesn’t pin any blame on me for getting spotted, submit it, and go to sleep.
But the woman in the red shirt will be gone.