The 2084 Precept (30 page)

"And the suicides?" he asked. He looked as
if he was prepared to believe anything. Billions maybe.

Ah well, that is not such a bad number," I
said. "Only about 1 million per year. Or two per minute, if you
like."

"Two per minute."

"More or less, yes."

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"What's wrong? How do you mean, Jeremy?"

"Well, why would so many human beings want
to kill themselves? And every year you said."

"Ah, a good question, Jeremy. It's mainly
because they don't think that this planet is a good place to be.
Being controlled and managed as it is by what, for them, is a
pretty stupid and horrifying species."

"But they are members of that species
themselves."

"Ah yes, but they don't want to be. And so
they opt out."

"O.K.," he sighed. He went to fetch himself
some more coffee, came back and sat down again at the table.

"Of course," I said, "there are the suicide
bombers as well."

"Suicide bombers? What do they do?"

"Well…they kill as many other human beings
as they can while killing themselves—usually by blowing themselves
up in the middle of a large crowd. And usually for religious
reasons. They believe what their religion's human representatives
tell them, namely that this is what their god wants them to do, and
they believe that they will receive some kind of superb posthumous
rewards for doing it."

"Now why would they believe that?"

"Because some other human beings have told
them to believe it."

"That is why they believe it? There is no
other reason?"

"That is why. There is no other reason."

“But…”

“Religions, Jeremy, with both their promises
of huge rewards and their threats of terrible retribution, are used
by a minority of humans to influence and coerce other humans. Take
Sati for example.”

“Sati?”

“Yes, Sati is a tradition of certain Indian
religions. Newly widowed women immolate themselves on their dead
husbands’ funeral pyres. Irrespective of whether they have
children, and even if they are still only teenagers.”

“Why?”

“Same reason: because other human beings
have told them they should. Sati, in fact, was the name of a Hindu
goddess, but as a practice it is alive and well not only in India
but in several other religions around the world. Burying these
widows alive is also an accepted alternative ritual.”

“Burying alive? You
are
using the
present tense, Peter?”

“Indeed I am. But the fact is, in India the
practice of Sati has gradually been made illegal. Unfortunately,
flap, flap, enforcement of the law remains inconsistent. So there
are still such cases today.”

“Today? You mean now, this year?”

“Yes, this year. But things are improving.
In the old days, hundreds of wives and concubines would be buried
alive with their husband’s body, or would immolate themselves on
their husband’s funeral pyre, a famous example of which was Raja
Suchet Singh’s death in 1844.”

"Extraordinary. Extraordinary. I think I
would like to leave this whole matter of killing if you don't
mind," Jeremy said. "In fact, I would like to cut this meeting
short. I hope you understand that I have to do a lot of research on
what you have been telling me today; the subject will be such a
volatile one that I must ensure there are no exaggerations. Do you
think you could merge any other major human interaction items into
the subject for our next meeting
? Social and Organizational
Characteristics
?"

"No problem, Jeremy. As subjects, they more
or less overlap anyway."

"Good. Would you be able to meet again this
Friday?"

"Yes. At what time?"

"Let's leave that open, Peter. You will be
calling me in any case about anyone following you and we can
arrange a time and place depending on that." He certainly sounded
somewhat disheartened. Dejected. Today's few facts and figures
clearly did not depict a particularly benevolent species. He
presumably would have preferred a more harmonious bunch of
life-forms for his doctorate work.

"Understood," I said. And the meeting was
over. We stood up, shook hands and I headed for the exit at a fair
rate of knots.

Little Miss Goodall was sitting there,
typing away and diffusing her erotic aura all over the place
without appearing to notice. Well, she wouldn't need to notice, she
knows it's there day and night, no matter what she's doing.

"Thank you, Jane," I said with a smile. See
how she reacts to my use of her first name.

"Oh, Mr. O'Donoghue," she replied with a
smile that would incinerate the cockles of your heart, whatever, as
I tend to remark, they may be. "That was a relatively short
meeting."

"The name is Peter, Jane. Yes, so I'm off
now. Take care, see you next time."

"Oh…well…hope to see you soon. ´Bye
Peter."

I gave a little wave of the hand and hopped
through the door, down the stairway and out onto the street. Lit an
overdue cigarette, a great alleviator of neuron stress. Jane must
be puzzled. This is a courteous male client. But he is not drooling
at the mouth, he is not attempting any useful conversation, he is
seemingly unaffected by her charms, to use a polite term for her
seductive wares, and probably, therefore, not necessarily
interested in said wares. Which, as it so happens, I am not. There
should be a message by now from Céline. I'll check when I'm back at
the hotel. Even so, it will be interesting to see what Jane gets up
to with the courteous Mr. O'Donoghue next time we meet. Peter she
calls me now and hopes to see me again
soon.
Unless, of
course, she has started up with boyfriend number thirty nine by
then.

That man was there again. In a doorway. I
caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. Stamped my
cigarette out and sauntered off in the direction of Tavistock
Street. I knew exactly where to go to check this out, there was no
need for a trek over the Thames. The ground floor entrance to the
'En Passant' has a recess for trash bins in the short hallway
before you go through the door and up the stairs. I would speed up
when turning the corner and get in there before he could see me. He
would also turn the corner, see I wasn't there and presumably start
checking the entrances on both sides of the street as he walked
along. But my entrance would be empty, I would be tucked into the
recess and he wouldn't be able to see me. I, on the other hand,
would be able to see him as he passed on. Because the recess was on
the left as you walk in and I would have come from the right end of
the street. So all I had to do was leave a couple of centimeters of
vision to observe anyone passing on to the next doorway.

I didn't look behind me, nor even sideways,
just to show him that I had no idea he might be following me. I
sauntered around the corner into Tavistock Street. And then I
sprinted along to the 'En Passant' and into the recess and
waited.

Not for long. There he was, passing by,
nothing in this doorway, and on he continued down the street. I
calculated two minutes for him to get to the end. I then calculated
another half a minute for him to stand there looking back before
deciding that he'd probably lost me, but that it would be worth a
cursory check of the next street just in case. And I added another
half a minute for that.

And, exactly three minutes later, I peeked
out. There were quite a few people going to wherever they were
going, but there was no sign of my sleuth. So I left the doorway,
vanished quickly around a couple of corners and kept going until I
found an empty cab and directed the driver to my hotel.

I checked my mailbox as soon as I got to my
room. No message. And no calls during the day to my mobile either.
This I did not like. But maybe she'd had a difficult time with her
fiancé. Maybe I would get a call sometime tonight, maybe she would
be on a flight to London tomorrow. I didn't like it, but it wasn't
the time to bug her with another email. Which, come to think of it,
was the only way I could contact her. How come I hadn't got her
phone number or her address even? Shit, I don't even know her
surname. My mind must be clogging up, losing its grip at the early
age of thirty eight.

I was tired. I had dinner in the hotel, a
Côtes du Rhône with it, an expensive one this time and it was as
good as the good cheaper ones, and I finished the IHT and went to
bed.

I woke up in not such a good mood. Céline
had
not
called or sent me a message last night. If I heard
nothing from her during the day, I would have to figure out what
kind of a message to send this evening to find out what was going
on or what had happened.

I cheered myself up with my poached eggs, my
Chivers and my Lavazza. I went back to my room and called Jeremy on
the alien phone, as my neurons had decided to refer to it, punched
the green button.

Abracadabra—a cabbalistic word originating
with Moses—the phone worked, no problem. "Good morning, Peter," he
said, sounding not quite as depressed as when I had left him
yesterday.

"Morning, Jeremy. Just calling to let you
know that I am indeed being followed. I checked it out. It was the
same chap. Amateur."

He thought about that for a moment.

"Well…let's find out who he is or who they
are. And what he or they want. Confront him, ask him."

Pretty logical. "Will do, Jeremy," I said.
"I'm off to Slough again now. I'll give you a call later in the day
and let you know what happens. Cheerio."

"Have a good day, Peter."

And so it was the M4 again. A warm day,
sunny, but I drove as slowly as if it were raining, checked for a
blue Nissan. But I didn't see one, and I didn't see any other car
that appeared to be following me. I pulled into Clark's and checked
the road for a couple of minutes. Just normal traffic, no blue
Nissan.

I smoked a leisurely cigarette and went
inside, received a good morning from the guy at the desk. Surprise,
surprise. He greets people. And a sunny day without him being off
somewhere having a smoke.

I went along to Ron's office.

"Good morning, Peter," he chimed. "That
set-up reduction initiative of yours is going great guns. We've set
up the groups, the guys are really into it, they’re off to a great
start. One meeting a week but they're looking at things every day,
thinking about them, coming up with all kinds of ideas. And two of
the groups have found the reasons for a couple of quality defects
as well."

"I'm pleased to hear it, Ron. Have we got
any suppliers coming in today?"

"Yes. Joe has fixed up one for this morning
and one for midday. Four more tomorrow, I think."

Joe Braithwaite was the purchasing guy and
he had one assistant. They reported to Ron, who as far as I could
determine devoted perhaps one hour per year to this responsibility
of his. Well, as I have already mentioned, that was going to change
before the year was out. But first, I would be accumulating some
data to be able to prove exactly how badly things had been managed
in the past.

I went along to Joe's office. I liked Joe, I
liked his honesty. He always said what he thought, but at the same
time I had never heard him say anything really nasty about any
other person. I couldn't say the same for myself of course, even if
I don't allow my dislikes to escalate into anything worse.

Joe was an ex-rugby player with the nose and
the ears to verify it. He was going bald on top, not a problem for
a guy cemented into a marriage with four kids running around all
over the place. A happy marriage as I understood it, a rare enough
accomplishment given the nature of our species, and particularly
these days, given the fact that most women are no longer
financially dependent on their husbands. It cheers you up to come
across such relationships from time to time—although they are not
for the likes of me of course.

Hi, Peter," he said. "We could only manage
to fix two meetings for today. But we've got four for tomorrow, two
in the morning and two in the afternoon. Here are the two summaries
for today's visitors. The first meeting starts in half an hour.
We've got the big meeting room, drinks and coffee arranged."

"Great, Joe. I can see you're busy. See you
in half an hour, O.K.?"

I got myself a coffee from the machine and
took it outside, lit up another cigarette. Warm and sunny,
transforming the Slough industrial estate into just an awful place
instead of an appalling one.

I thought about Céline again. Something had
to be wrong. It could be that she has decided she prefers her
fiancé after all. Or it could be that she found that poem to be
really weird, making me a weird kind of guy to be avoided at all
costs. I shouldn't have sent it, bloody stupid come to think of it.
I should have cobbled together a couple of romantic lines and
complied with the red wine promise that way. Or it could be—heaven
(whichever one you prefer) forbid—that she's had an accident or
fallen ill. Or it could be that her email isn't working and she
doesn't have a mobile phone. But that is ludicrous, it would mean
that she doesn't have a home phone either and is allergic to mobile
ones. No doubt about it, emotional stress has the ability to reduce
one’s neurons to a worthless morass of unusable static.

I strolled across the parking lot to the
exit, checked the road. No blue Nissan.

I went back inside and into the meeting
room. Joe was there arranging drinks for two guys in suits and ties
who were both fiddling around with their mobiles as if suffering
from some kind of recently evolved electronic disease. Lots of them
about these days, you see them everywhere. Take away their mobiles
and you would have to construct a few thousand additional clinics
specializing in disorders of the central nervous system.