Special Relationship (9 page)

They laughed as Alex told him of some of the captions that were printed on Adrian's T-shirts.

"Seems just the sort of guy we need. Someone who knows how to work a computer – I doubt our IT guys do – and someone to lighten up our Mayfair office. I might poach him."

"Don't you dare."

He then asked what else her company might offer. "Well, as you know we tag ourselves 'total back office support for financial companies', so anything you want really." And she rolled off a long list of things they were doing for other clients.

"I'll look into it but let's not talk shop anymore. Tell me about yourself."

The arrival of the first course gave her time to collect her thoughts.

"Go on then," he said
after the waiter had served the food.

"What?" asked Alex.

"Tell me about yourself."

"Well, with my accent living in England the first thing everyone asks me is how I ended up in London and why I left the States. And the first thing I tell them is that they really don't want to know as it's a boring story. And it is, I promise you."

"Well, Tavis wouldn't agree," he laughed. "You know he thinks you robbed a bank or something in America and you escaped justice by fleeing over here?"

"Ah, but f I robbed a bank would I really be working my socks off trying to keep myself and three others employed from a a rather dingy office in Stratford?"

"Perhaps not. Maybe Tavis has got this one wrong," he smiled.

Alex liked him. She liked his easy going nature, his self-
deprecation , his humour and, she had to admit to herself, his looks.

"
Tavis told me that you don't have much of a family back in the States...sorry I mean in numbers not that your family isn't up to much."

"No, just a sister and a few aunts and uncles scattered around. My father died when I was
sixteen and my mother about six years ago."

"I'm sorry,"
he said.

"So you left New York
shortly after your mother died?"

"Yes, made me realise that life is short and I needed to travel. London was my first port of call and I liked it so much I decided to stay, which I managed to do after a struggle with immigration. It's very much like New York, vibrant, anything-goes, a large immigrant population trying to make good, just smaller buildings."

Alex tried to turn the attention to him. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Go on."

"When you started out did you always think you would become as successful as, well, you have become?" she asked, sipping some water.

"I was confident if that's what you mean. Life has a habit of biting you in the arse and I know lots of people far smarter than me who have made fortunes and lost them, just through sheer bad luck or circumstances. But it's never been about the money. I just treat life like a game, like playing Monopoly, which I used to love as a kid.

"I'm now playing Monopoly for real – just with money markets not property - and while some people get their fun from their families and kids, I get mine by playing a game.

He drank some water. "I know that sounds dreadful but, for some reason that I don't understand, I was very ambitious when I left school. And I guess I've been so busy playing my game the family thing has left me behind."

"Would you swap everything, you know to have like a family life in exchange for your success?" she asked - and wished she hadn't as it sounded too personal. It also revealed to him that Alex knew he didn't have a family.

"You know, that's a question, I have often asked myself. And my really honest answer is that I don't know."

As the waiters served the main course, she remembered that Kerry was still downstairs. "Nick, bad timing, I just need to visit the bathroom."

In the cubicle, she sent a text to Kerry. "All OK, Nick a nice guy..nothing to worry about, so sorry to have asked you to come. I'll make it up to you and explain all later, Love A x." She returned to the table where Nick was pouring wine.

Her phone, which she had turned back on to text Kerry, bleeped again. "Aargh! I thought I turned it off. Sorry."

"I'm the big hedge fund manager and you're the one getting all the calls," he quipped.

She looked at the message. "No worries babe and ask Nick if has he a brother! Luv ya 2, Kels."

An hour a go Alex was a nervous wreck, crying in a cubicle in the washroom, undecided whether she had the strength to even go up to the restaurant. Now she was engaged in entertaining conversation with a very likeable guy who seemed to have nothing to hide. The unfathomable text messages were forgotten.

When the conversation started again, he told her that he was going to New York at the end of the week and asked if she wanted anything from her home town.

"Anything from Tiffany's that costs more than ten grand," she joked.

"No, we have Tiffany's in London," he said. "And besides something expensive would look like I'm trying to buy your friendship and I think you are too smart for that.

"I'm thinking something silly – something you can't get here."

"Well, on the Americans In London website most of them ask where to get French's but I prefer Coleman's."

"Maple syrup...cookies...
cinnamon rolls?"

"Nick, shut up, you'd only get one of your staff to go shopping for you."

"That's where you are wrong," he said. "I'd buy it and wrap it myself."

He was flirting again and Alex, surprising herself, was flirting back.

"I'm sort of Englished-up now. I eat chips with curry sauce. I love Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding, and have egg and bacon for breakfast at least twice a week. The only thing I don't do is warm beer."

"Can't blame you," he replied.

God, she thought, how can someone so rich be so normal. She enjoyed the banter but was curious how a man who'd built such an empire remained what her compatriots would describe as 'a regular guy'.

Keen that nothing went wrong to spoil things, and remembering that she had arranged to meet Kerry and Adrian for coffee, she told him of her pending appointment.

"Oh cancel it, let's go for a walk round London."

"Nick, I can't. But this is a good lunch and maybe when you get back from New York, I'll reciprocate."

"Well, you do owe me. Have you seen the prices here?"

"For a three-course lunch, with views thrown in, they seem reasonable to me," she teased him.

"I'll just deduct it from your contract then."

He poured some water. "Seriously, I'd like it if we could ditch the chauffeur and car, and just walk round for a while. But I do understand if you want to make your meeting...so maybe after New York?"

"Of course," she replied. "I like to know our clients are happy and that they are getting the service they pay for."

"No, I was thinking we meet up and talk about stuff other than business," he said. "Maybe do the walk round London, Tate Modern, something like that, you know the sort of stuff all American tourists do."

"Are you stereotyping Americans, Mr Hensen?"

"Just kidding."

"I'll do you a deal," said Alex. "Bring me a blueberry cheesecake from Katz's and I'll do your London walk or tourist attraction, and speak in a loud American voice."

"Done. And how are we spelling Katz's?" he asked.

They skipped desert and drank coffee before he reluctantly asked her whether she needed a car.

"No, in my world we do cabs, Nick."

They both got up and he kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks, really good lunch and good company and I'll get the cheesecake."

"Or Katherine will have it flown over," she countered.

"Wait and see."

In the taxi on the way to Stratford, Alex wondered whether Nick for all his wealth and his real-life Monopoly game was really hankering after the normality that had saved herself from the brink. She called Kerry. "I'll be in Costa's in about half an hour,
Kels, is that alright for you both?" She heard Kerry asking Adrian and she said they'd both be there.

"Great, lots to tell."

When she arrived in the coffee shop, the two of them were there seated and in deep discussion, chances were, she thought, about how well or badly lunch went. Kerry stood up and walked to meet her. "Give us a hug, darling," she said. "I was so worried about you earlier. What the fuck went on?"

"It was me Kerry, I'm so sorry. What with everything that was happening, I was feeling a bit low and I sort of freaked out. But he was a real gentleman, good company, and not the devil incarnate that I had imagined, and, well, in the end I had a really enjoyable time."

"And what happened in the park?" she asked.

"I'll tell you later," she whispered.

The two of them joined Adrian at a table and, even though he liked his role as the office jester, he knew this was not the time for acting the fool. Alex had always looked after him even when times were tough and, though he enjoyed the ridiculing of each other in the office, he knew that she had issues that deserved some modicum of seriousness.

"Hi, let me get you a coffee."

"Flattie, please," said Alex.

Fl
attie...what the fuck is that, he thought as he went to the counter.

While he was ordering, Alex told Kerry about the park.

"Just everything was against me like in a perfect storm, the texts, the attention from people who work for Hensen and then a beautiful young girl enjoying a day out with her mum. I just cracked. And I wanted to just go home, get into bed and forget everything."

"But you made it to the restaurant – that's the main thing," Kerry said. "Strong as a lion."

"Well, I was shaking when I went up in the lift. Couldn't wait for it to be all over. But Nick was great, I think he sensed I was tense, but he made me feel so comfortable and he was so sort of normal that I just started relaxing and forgot everything. "

Adrian came back with Alex's coffee. "Here you go," he said, placing the cup in front of her.

Alex wanted straight away to discuss her reasons for asking him there, mainly because she wanted to know if there was a solution – but also because she wanted to talk alone with Kerry. She explained to him about the text messages she had received regarding Nick Hensen, unsure what Kerry had already have told him, and asked whether it was possible to trace who sent them.

"You have two ways," he explained. "You either hack the computers of the text-sending service or you go to the police and say you are being
harassed by a person or people unknown, in which case, if it's serious enough, they might go the company and demand to see which IP address the messages were sent from.

"Neither is easy, particularly as the company is likely to be in the States. The texts, although a bit weird, are not really threatening so chances are the police won't be bothered. Even if you get them to act, there is no guarantee that they will be able to trace the sender. They might have sent them from a computer that's not theirs.

"Even with an IP address we might not find the actual sender."

"What's an IP address?" Kerry asked.

Adrian explained that it was just like your home address, everyone has a unique identifier. But on the internet your address could be disguised or hidden and, unlike in your own home, posting from one address didn't actually prove that you lived there.

"You only have to go to an internet cafe. The message can be traced back there, but the chances of
proving who actually sent it would be slim."

"So people can send anyone text messages on their phone and there is really little chance of finding out who sent it?" asked Alex.

"The police might find out with lots of work, but they would only be bothered if someone was being really malicious, threatening to kill you or something. Telling them that someone is warning you about another person isn't going to get them running around."

"So I have to put up with the messages?"

"You could change your number, but then you'd have to tell Hensen's people if you want to carry on working for them, and the chances are that whoever is sending them will get your new number, since we have to assume that they have come from someone with a connection to Hensen, the company or the man.

"You could block messages from that text-forwarding service. But do you want to. Maybe the sender is trying to warn you of something that you need to know?

"The messages will still be sent, just you wouldn't see them."

Alex and Kerry looked at each other.

"Listen ladies, I'm happy to give you some free overtime, but I think you two might want to discuss things between yourselves.  Let me know if there is anything I can do tomorrow. In the meantime I'd like to join the rat race on its homeward journey through the sewers of London and catch up with my Miss Rat."

Adrian might be the prankster and joker who dealt in computer code and numbers and not emotions, but he was perceptive enough to sense that the two of them wanted to be alone.