Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

The idea of using any special knowledge to benefit someone other than herself would normally never enter Polly’s head. But this was something different. Something personal. Imagine being able to double the Lawson inheritance overnight. What on earth would they say, her parents? They wouldn’t believe it, of course. Not at first. Polly imagined this disbelief. Then pictured her father’s gradual amazement at the realisation that it had actually happened. Her mother would be pleased too. More money to throw down the bottomless pit of literary publishing. But it didn’t matter what the stuff was used for. The point was that Polly would be helping them and – improve on this – at no cost to herself. Only down side would be an inability to take the credit for such a brilliant coup. For she could never reveal how she had stolen keys, entered offices illegally and broken into a file – even if it was one relating to her own affairs. OK, the first time there was some excuse. Then she had been in rapidly expanding debt, and desperate. But this time the reason was straightforward maximisation of profits. Or, as the self-righteous whingers denied access to the golden mile would doubtless put it, naked greed.

Of course it would soon become obvious that someone had been tinkering profitably with the Lawson finances. That should be fun, thought Polly. She wondered if Dennis would take responsibility but straightaway discounted the idea. He was far too honourable (i.e., sober, self-regarding and principled). No, eventually she would have to own up. And they would all see she had done a wrong thing but for all the right reasons.

Satisfied with this conclusion Polly completed both her transactions and dispatched a heart-stopping amount of money. Even though she had watched Billy Slaughter transfer much, much more and had already seen a slight but definite increase in the share price, it was still a deeply frightening moment.

Anxious now to get away, she found a local directory and checked out a minicab. Careful not to draw attention to an unusually late call on what might be an itemised bill, she rang from a box in the market square.

Financially, she just made it home. She shouldn’t have been short. Earlier, coming back from the movie, she had drawn out the permitted maximum from a cash machine (a humiliating fifty following an acrimonious snarl-in with the bank). But then, high as a kite on great expectations, a mighty wack of it had gone on a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. No matter: even though it was long past midnight when she arrived back in London with a few pound coins in her pocket, one of the night buses would get her home.

Polly had imagined that, like a spy or commando after the conclusion of a particularly dangerous mission, she would return fizzing with a mixture of elation and relief. She saw herself unwinding, playing a little music, drinking the wine. Walking about till the first papers were on the street. Until the whole financial world now knew what she knew. But, in fact, once the string of tension had been cut, she felt very tranquil. Tranquil but tired. She pulled off her dress, slipped into bed and within seconds was fast asleep.

When she awoke it was high noon. Polly couldn’t believe it. How could such a thing have happened? The traffic, the phone that was always ringing, the passers-by clacking sticks against the railings, the yapping dogs – where were they when she needed them? Twelve o’clock!

While Polly fumed she was climbing into jeans and flinging on an old striped shirt. Into sneakers, grab keys, run from flat. The nearest newsagent a five-minute hurtle. She picked up the Financial Times. Gillans and Hart had made the front page.

Masood Aziz, giving change, was surprised to find his attention urgently drawn in the direction of the magazine rack. A young woman stood there. She looked stricken; about to fall. Sheets of pink-coloured newsprint slid through her hands and floated to the ground.

Mr. Aziz shouted for his wife, who came quickly, threshing through strips of plastic curtain at the back of the shop. They found a stool and tried to persuade the girl to sit down without success. And when Mrs. Aziz brought a tumbler of water it was pushed fiercely away. The girl set out for the door, stumbled, righted herself. People gathered in the shop entrance, watching as she staggered off down the road. At one point she stopped and vomited in the gutter. Mr. Aziz picked up the newspaper, which was dirty, and started grumbling about lost revenue.

Polly had no recollection of returning to the flat. But suddenly she was there staring into the bathroom mirror, swilling sick from her mouth, cleaning her teeth with such force her gums began to bleed.

Consumed utterly by fear and rage, incapable of intelligent thought, she paced round and round the flat, punching the furniture, banging on the wall till her knuckles bled. At one point she stood in the middle of the room yelling, “Bankrupt…bankrupt…bankrupt…” a wild ululation like a bird screaming in the jungle. Just after this the telephone rang and she ripped it from its socket and hurled it across the room.

Eventually, her throat raw, Polly wore herself out. At any rate physically. Her mind still ran at a lunatic pace. She sat down and, for the first time ever, wished she was more like her American pain-in-the-backside flatmate. Debbie was always doing what she called her “practice.” Sitting on a cushion staring into space for half an hour at a time. Said it calmed her nerves; softened her edge. Polly should try it. Polly had no wish to try it. She wanted her edge honed as keenly as an executioner’s axe. Enter the exchange with anything less and you deserved all you got.

However, even as she despised such inane and woolly thinking, Polly squatted on the floor and breathed slowly for at least five minutes. It didn’t calm her nerves or soften her edge but she did start seeing things with just a shade less emotion. This led her to consider her next move. No doubt at all what that would have to be. The question was, how should she handle a confrontation with Billy Slaughter? What she couldn’t do was what she longed to do. Go round there and stick him with an extremely sharp instrument. He was bigger and stronger and the whole business would no doubt end in her complete humiliation. And if, by some freakish stroke of luck, she did inflict any serious damage, the police would be called and she’d be in even worse trouble than she was now.

Polly flung a denim jacket over the scruffy clothes she had on, grabbed her credit card, plus the three remaining pound coins, and ran. On the bus she sat upstairs, leaning forwards, urging it ahead. Drumming her fists hard against thighs and muttering, “Come on come on come on come on…”

Polly had given no thought to her appearance. She was unaware that her hair was sticking out all over one side of her head and totally flat on the other where she had slept on it. Or that the gamey, slightly unpleasant smell on the top of the bus was not coming from the old man sitting directly behind her. Or that there were splashes of vomit down the front of her shirt. So she thought nothing of walking straight through the swing doors of Whitehall Court and heading across the vestibule towards the lift.

One of the porters behind the counter called after her. The other came quickly around to the front and caught up with Polly at the lift gate.

“Can I help you?” The words and his voice were quietly civil but his eyes were not.

“I’ve come to see Billy Slaughter.” Polly rattled the handle in her impatience though the lift was already groaning downwards.

“Mr. Slaughter?”

“Room seventeen.”

“Ah, yes. I’m afraid he is no longer here.”

“We’ll see.” Grimly she stared upwards through the metal trellis. “Get down here, you lazy fucker.”