Iain Banks: The Business

We were deep in the giant factory, in a sterile room at the centre of three concentric levels of antiseptic cleanliness. I was looking through a glass screen at a complex and gleaming machine which was depositing CD-sized wafers on a platter, spinning them and then plopping liquid on to the centre so that it flowed, apparently instantly, to cover the whole shining surface; then a metallic arm quickly flipped the wafer over and into another part of the machine.

Around us, more spacesuited workers were gliding across the high polish of the tiles pushing tall carts of wafers, or sat hunched over microscopes on workbenches or staring at computer screens, the text and graphics reflecting off their face masks while their hands pushed mice around or gloved fingers fluttered over quietly rattling keyboards. The air transmitted a whole choir of subtle humming, whining noises to my shielded ears, and smelled a little like a hospital's, except cleaner. Everywhere, under the high, bright lights, surfaces glittered and sparkled.

Even without knowing the breathtaking scale of the investment a plant like this required, you could have smelled the money here.

'I hope you can stay for lunch, Ms Telman,' Mr Rix said. 'Just the usual canteen grub for us normally, of course, but we could go further afield if you liked. Can we tempt you?' Mr Rix was a big man, a head taller than me, and wide. His jowly face gleamed behind his mask, smiling from the eyes down. I felt quite cool in the air-conditioned, variously filtered atmosphere, but Mr Rix seemed to be sweating. Perhaps he was claustrophobic.

'Thank you, I'd be delighted. The canteen will be fine.'

'Do you often take these, ah, sabbaticals as a sort of busman's holiday, Ms Telman?' asked his deputy.

'This is my first sabbatical, Mr Henderson,' I told him. 'I haven't had time to establish a pattern.' Henderson was about my height, stockier. I started walking towards one of the parts of the clean environment we hadn't visited yet; the two men jockeyed for position between the workbenches and the humming machines; a robot delivery unit on a collision course sensed us approaching and glided to a stop until we passed by.

'I think if I had a year off I'd find somewhere better than Motherwell to spend it.' He laughed, and he and Rix exchanged glances.

'It is a sabbatical, Mr Henderson, not a holiday.'

'Oh, of course. Of course.'

'However, I did spend a month on a yacht in the Caribbean at the start of the year, without my phone or a lap-top; that got me nicely wound down,' I told them, smiling broadly behind the mask. 'Since then I've been taking the occasional little holiday to let me think, and I've travelled round a lot of the company sites I'd wanted to see but never got round to. Plus I have spent quite a while in the Library of Congress and the British Library.'

'Ah,' Mr Henderson said. 'It's just that I thought you must have seen the inside of a chip plant before, that's all.'

'One or two,' I agreed. Mr Henderson was right to be surprised. In fact he was right to be suspicious, if that was what he was: despite the impression I'd been careful to give, this was not at all a casual visit. I stopped outside a swipe-card protected door in a tall blank wall and nodded. 'Where does this go?' I asked.

'Ah, this is an area where we've got the workmen in at the moment,' Mr Rix said, waving at the door. 'Installing a new finishing line. Can't actually go through right at this moment in time. Too much dust and that sort of thing, you know.'

'Plus they're test loading some of the etching chemicals today, I think, aren't they, Bill?' Henderson said.

'Oof!' Rix said, taking a comic sort of step away from the door. 'I think we'll keep well away from that stuff, eh?' They both laughed.

In the safety briefing before we'd donned our spacesuits, as well as being told what to do in the event of a fire and where to run for a dousing if something acidic splashed on us, we'd been warned about various chemicals with very long names which were used in the chip-production process. They could, allegedly, sneak through the tiniest hole in a glove, soak instantly and unnoticed through the skin and get straight to work rotting your bones from the inside before going on to perform even more insidious horrors on your vital organs.

'Well,' said Mr Henderson. The two men started to pull away from the door. Mr Rix put an arm out as though to shepherd me away.

I crossed my arms. 'What's the likely life of the plant?'

'Hmm? Ah, well, with the new lines in place…' Mr Rix began, but I didn't pay very much attention after that. I had what you might call half an ear for his tone of voice and I was listening for certain keywords, but what I was really interested in was Mr Rix's and Mr Henderson's body language; their whole demeanour.

And all I could think of was, These guys are trying to hide something. They were frightened of me, which does — I confess — give me a buzz, but it went beyond the usual nervousness of local bosses used to total deference having to answer to somebody from higher up in the organisation who has come to pay a short-notice visit. There was something else.

Maybe they're both closet misogynists, I thought; perhaps their habituated reactions to women were derisory or even coercive (I'd looked at the files on this place: there was a slightly higher than average rate of staff turnover, especially amongst female workers, and there had been a few more complaints that had ended at industrial tribunals than one might have expected), but somehow that didn't feel like it would account for the edgy vibe I was getting here.

Of course, it could be me. I could be wrong. Always check the equipment for sensor error first.

I don't know whether I'd have dismissed the feeling in the end or not — I'd probably have decided they had some lucrative little scam going that could have got them cashiered, but not something it was worth my while bothering with, given that the plant's figures looked pretty good in general — but something happened that made me think about it all later.

A spacesuited woman came into view down an aisle. I could tell her gender from her gait as much as her shape. She seemed distracted, struggling to carry a lap-top, a plastic-wrapped metal briefcase, a thick, glossy-covered manual and heavy, straggling cables. I saw her first. Then Henderson looked round, casually back at me, and then quickly at her again. He started towards her, then glanced back at Rix, whose voice faltered momentarily before continuing.

The woman was fishing in a pocket of the spacesuit for something as she approached us while Henderson strode to meet her. Just before he got to her, she pulled out a swipe card on the end of a little metal chain.

Then Henderson intercepted her, one arm out as he nodded back in the direction she had come from. Her head came up as she noticed him for the first time. Mr Rix's arm extended again and, touching my right shoulder, gently but firmly pulled me round and away while his other hand waved through the air and he said, with just a little too much hearty bluster, 'While yet before they turn it into a battery-chicken shed, eh!' He clapped. his gloved hands together. 'Well, now. Cup of tea?'

I smiled up at him. 'What a good idea.'

I had Raymond take us on a detour on the way back, to a nondescript field by what had once been a main road near Coatbridge.

'Come here, small girl.'

'Whit?'

'I said, come here.'

'Whit fir?'

'What? What did you say?'

'Eh?'

'Are you actually talking English, child?'

'Ahm no Inglish, ahm Scoatish.'

'Ah. Well, at least I understood that. I wasn't questioning your nationality, young lady. I was merely wondering aloud whether we shared the same language.'

'Whit?'

'Never mind. Look, would you kindly step closer to the car; I hate having to raise my voice…I'm not going to bite you, child.'