Breathe (5 page)

‘Has anyone ever tested for them?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Can you get me data on anything you think qualifies as unusual behaviour?’

‘Sure. I managed to find quite a lot for Felix.’

‘So what happened to the report?’

She studies him with hooded eyes. ‘What do you think?’

It’s early afternoon, and the atmosphere on Ben’s floor is ramping up. People are tense and visibly working faster. In the reception area, the video images and soothing music now play at a faster, more urgent pace. Ben sits at his computer trying to access Felix’s files. He discovers a set of dated reports:

CONTENTS DELETED

CONTENTS DELETED

CONTENTS DELETED

He stretches out his back, then looks around and sees Fitch shouting at June and throwing papers onto the floor.

‘You collate the forms in binders, not with these damned things! It’s not hard to remember.’ Fitch looks exasperated. June is forced to bend and pick everything up.

June mutters under her breath. It sounds like she says: ‘Fitch the bitch.’

‘We don’t have to hire the obese, you know. We’re doing you a favour. You can keep this job or just order yourself more dessert.’ Fitch clutches her forehead, as if in pain. Ben frowns. Even from the little he knows about Fitch, this is uncharacteristically cruel. She’s obviously been drinking. He had her down as more professional. June’s nearly in tears. Ben can’t stand by and do nothing, even though it means breaking his vow. ‘What is your problem?’ he asks Fitch.

‘Inefficiency is my problem, Mr Harper. We get this done right, we win the contract and we all get to keep our jobs. We may even get bonuses at Christmas. Things are going to get a lot tougher around here. You want to be a lightweight, tell me you can’t handle the pressure.’

‘Ben, don’t, it doesn’t matter,’ June interrupts, anxious for her new colleague not to cause a scene.

‘Look,’ Ben tells Fitch, ‘if she’s suffering from stress-related illness, she can report it to me and I’ll take action for her – until then, sober up and back off.’ He storms back to his station in anger.

‘I like you like that,’ Miranda whispers.

‘Well, I don’t like myself like that.’

‘Fitch has been getting at June all week, but I’ve never seen her like this before.’

Clarke sees them talking and calls Ben over with a curt: ‘Harper. My office. Now.’

When Ben comes into the office, Clarke stalks around him in a predatory, unsettling manner. ‘Do yourself a favour. Stay away from Jameson. She’s good at her job. But she’s trouble.’

Ben finds himself defending her. ‘Miranda’s concerned about my predecessor getting dismissed.’

‘Of course she’s concerned. She was going out with him. When she broke it off, he was so upset that he had to leave. He couldn’t bear to keep seeing her.’

Ah. That would explain it.

Miranda runs to catch up with him. He’s leaving for the night. Ben keeps walking.

‘Hey, wait for me. I thought we were spending the evening together.’

‘You didn’t tell me you were going out with Felix.’

‘Did Clarke tell you that? We had a one night stand, all right?’

‘You dumped him.’

‘Bullshit. He ended it, not me.’

‘He couldn’t stay any longer because he felt uncomfortable around you.’

‘Clarke’s trying to divide us, don’t you see? I’m just worried about him. Clarke knows what happened. There has to be a way to make him admit the truth. You know it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I usually get fired for. Doing the right thing.’ Ben carries on, leaving her behind. He doesn’t want to be angry with her, but the devil in him won’t forgive. She catches him up.

‘Ben, I’m not using you. I wouldn’t do that. I think you’re … I don’t know. You care. You’ll make a difference whatever you do. I liked Felix a lot. Now I’ve no-one else. Please Ben.’

The devil wins. Ben leaves for the night. Miranda can do nothing but watch him go.

Up on the twentieth floor, senior manager Meadows sits in a glass box like Clarke’s, ploughing through piles of paperwork while working two computer screens and taking three calls, crazy-busy. His assistant, Jo Cousins, a battle-tough woman in her fifties, puts her head around the door. ‘New York’s on Line 2, Mr Meadows, and your wife’s still holding on 3.’

‘I told you to tell her I’ll call back,’ Meadows hisses. He takes a call, then another, wipes his forehead and examines the flickering call switches, buzzes his assistant. ‘Hold all my calls, Cousins.’

‘I can’t. New York is urgent, I can’t keep –’

‘Hold the fucking calls!’

Meadows rises and locks Cousins out of the office. For a moment, he thinks he can smell burning. Then he methodically turns off the computer screens and tears the phone jacks out of the wall. He puts on a CD – ‘Barcarolle’ from ‘The Tales Of Hoffmann’ – and cranks the music up high. Next, he begins to take off his clothes, neatly folding each item – shirt, tie, trousers – on his desk.

His flustered assistant sees what is happening and tries the door of the office. Meadows’ behaviour attracts the attention of others.

Now completely naked, the supervisor goes to the window and strikes it with a chair. He has to do this six times before the glass cracks. Cousins hammers on the glass wall as others try to break the office door down.

As the music reaches its height, Meadows climbs out onto the window ledge. His is naked, and has cut himself badly on the broken glass. Meadows’ eyes cloud over a milky white. He braces himself, then swan-dives, out into the sky and the streets below, sailing, sailing all the way down to his death.

There is a rending of flesh and glass as Meadows’ body explodes through the canopy above the station platforms, and home-going commuters scream and run.

5. THURSDAY

The building’s security guards have roped off the area around the shattered window. It’s stormier than ever outside, raining grey pellets. Normal work has been disrupted as everyone talks about what has happened. There are boards around Meadows’ office that only serve to draw attention to it.

Ben passes Willis with a dry, knowing look. ‘You said you’d get me data if there was unusual behaviour. I think that constitutes “unusual behaviour”, don’t you?’

Willis guiltily agrees with a sigh. ‘Meet me for lunch. I’ll have your data for you.’

Puzzled, Ben looks through the door to Meadows’ shattered window, then walks back through the open-plan floor to his desk.
What the fuck is going on?
he wonders.

Two male office workers are having a violent argument about – it seems – pens. A girl is crying quietly at her workstation. Others seem to be suffering from bad headaches. One is staring into an empty waste-basket as if searching for the meaning of life.

Ben watches Miranda working, her tongue poking from the side of her mouth in concentration. Suddenly smitten, he draws a red love-heart on a piece of paper and folds it into an aeroplane. He remembers how to do this from his last job as a carer.

He launches the paper plane at Miranda’s desk. It hovers for a moment, then gets sucked into the wall grating between them. If he concentrates hard, he can actually see the air in the room. It’s like the building is respiring.

Miranda feels him looking. She glances up and smiles. Checking the coast is clear, she comes over to speak to him. ‘What do you think about Meadows going for a walk in the clouds? The official line is that he was under a lot of pressure and had a nervous breakdown. Some breakdown. They had to hose him off the platform. They found his teeth in McDonalds –’

Suddenly Ben looks sick and disorientated.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I feel a little weird. I need to go to the bathroom.’ Once there, Ben is violently, volubly sick. He soaks a paper towel in cold water and presses it against his forehead. Hearing rhythmic noises, he turns and sees a couple, Alison and another office worker, making intense love in one of the open toilet cubicles, their bouncing, fleshy images distorted in the mirror. Now they are photographing each other and laughing. Ben looks at his watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Jesus, get a room.’

Spotting a slew of discarded photographs lying across the floor, he picks them up and studies them.

Perspiring and pale, he walks with Miranda. ‘You okay?’ she asks.

‘Better than the others.’ He points to their fellow workers, some mumbling, rocking in their chairs, clutching their heads like lunatics in Bedlam. Others are simply eyes-down and working hard, just as they always have.

‘Clarke had most of the division working all night. Not me, thank God. Temps charge too much overtime.’ They pass the photocopying/scanning room, where a girl is sitting on the photocopier, running out pictures of her arse. ‘She’s been doing that for nearly an hour. I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve got some photocopying to do. What did Willis say?’

‘I’m meeting her in the restaurant. Does everything seem strange to you? I mean really strange?’

‘Hallelujah, he sees the light. C’mere.’ She grabs his face and kisses him.

‘I’ve seen a lot more than the light. Take a look at these. They were in the bathroom.’ He hands Miranda the set of Polaroids. ‘The staff seem to have spent part of last night photographing each other naked.’ He calls out to the passing Swan, who looks harassed. ‘Mr Swan, would it be possible to have a word with you?’

Ben follows Swan into his office and shuts the door. He shows him the photos. Swan seems confused and distracted. Perhaps he, too, is losing control.

‘What do you make of these?’

‘You should have seen it here last night.’ Swan mops his forehead with a paper tissue, leaving little bits stuck to his skin. ‘And now look. Fights breaking out. People being rude to one another. Tasteless remarks made toward our non-Caucasian staff. Dirty pictures scrawled on the walls of the toilets. It’s against nature and it’s against God.’

‘It’s time to do something about this – maybe even evacuate the building until we can figure out –’

But Swan isn’t listening. He’s got his hands on a Bible and is brandishing it. ‘
For the Lord sayeth, Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21.
Someone has to keep a watch on this place.’ He whispers disconcertingly in Ben’s ear. ‘The Devil is in control of this building.’

‘It was you who put the triple sixes and crucifixes all around the basement?’

‘We have to warn the innocent, don’t you understand? You’ll pray with me, won’t you? Say you’ll get on your knees and pray!’

Ben manages to excuse himself and get out of the office. He heads for the reception area.

The video screens have all been changed again. Instead of streams and wheatfields, they now show fast industrial machinery shots cut to hard hip-hop beats.

‘Who changed the screens?’ he asks, as he passes.

‘Mr Clarke’s orders,’ the receptionist tells him. ‘Inspires the workforce, paces things up. It’s like being stabbed in the ears with red hot needles. Can you get repetitive brain injury?’ She drops her head back onto her console with a thud.

Willis looks furtive and distraught as she leafs through her notes. Ben notices she has a number of chewed-up pencils in her hair. Her nicotine patches have increased in size. ‘Look, maybe I was wrong,’ she admits. ‘Maybe it is stress-related. The business with Meadows has freaked everyone. There’s been a big rise in health problems among workers with a history of migraine, asthma or any kind of mental disturbance. I ran medical data matches on key personnel to find out who would be most susceptible. Guess who came out top?’

Easy one.
‘Mr Clarke.’

‘How did you know? He has a history of anger-management problems going back a long way. I think he may be – unwell.’

The pair become aware of a ruckus going on by the food counter. June is trying to return her lunch-plate to an upset chef. ‘You taste it, it’s tainted,’ she explains, visibly upset.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ the chef rallies. ‘I made it fresh this morning.’ One of the other diners is eating, and suddenly throws up. Others start gagging and vomiting. The restaurant quickly becomes disgusting. Everyone is being sick. The air is suddenly sour with bile. Ben pushes around to the back of the counter. ‘Health and Safety. Could you show me where you prepared it?’

The chef leads the way to the rear of the kitchen, where a brushed-steel electronic panel is the master-control for the kitchen. ‘Everything is automated, see? The quantities are mixed here. All I have to do is program them in. Nothing is touched by human hand.’ Everything’s spotlessly clean, but Ben becomes aware of a terrible smell in this area. ‘Christ, what is that?’ he asks.

He looks up at the vent above the master-control. It connects to a thick steel tube. He pulls a refrigeration unit out of the way. Something disgusting is leaking out of the tube. It leads directly over the food container. ‘What’s that for?’

‘Hot air convector; it keeps the food at a preset temperature.’

Ben grabs a spanner and breaks the tube apart. He quickly wishes he hadn’t; it’s full of liquid shit. Everyone jumps back, horrified, as the floor is spattered.

‘Where is this supposed to lead?’

‘Just to the boiler.’

From up the vent, through square steel ducts, through all manner of pipes and tunnels, the effluent sweeps, driven by pumps. Ben runs upstairs, following the ductwork. Behind him follows Miranda. The last duct leads to a junction, where the toilet waste pipe has been connected to the hot air intake. Both pipes are clearly labelled. Ben smashes them apart. Somebody has rerouted the pipes with silver racing tape. It’s an act of vandalism.

‘Why would anyone do that?’ asks Miranda.

‘To be a force of chaos.’ Ben looks at her. ‘To wreck the system.’

‘You don’t think – I wouldn’t even know where to begin …’

Ben studies her long and hard. He softens. ‘All right. Let’s go and see someone who
would
know where to begin.’

Ben and Miranda head down to the basement. ‘Seriously, why would someone join the pipes together?’ Miranda keeps asking him, as if he can explain everything that’s going on. ‘Industrial espionage?’