Chapter 12 #2
‘Well, just being ultra-cautious. You know, if your computer’s being bugged—’ she didn’t end the sentence, but the implication was there.
Her phone… why shouldn’t they bug her phone as well?
This thought gave Jo something of a jolt.
There really was a story here and maybe she did have to be much more careful.
‘Quite a lot of chance, I’d say,’ was Jo’s answer.
‘Well, well.’ There was a pause while Bella took this on board. ‘Do you really think it’s them?’
‘I’ve reported before on this kind of injection, you know, and generally positively. But obviously, I’d be the person with a very big interest in a new one. Maybe they’ve been keeping an eye on me ever since it was launched, who knows?’
‘That’s not on, is it?’ Bella replied. ‘Maybe we will have to look into this. I’ll call your mobile, Jo, is that OK?’
Abruptly Bella hung up and seconds later, Jo’s mobile began to ring.
‘Mobiles are harder to bug these days,’ Bella explained.
‘You don’t think we’re being a bit over the top?’ Jo asked.
‘Better safe than sorry.’
Before Jo could ask what on earth she was talking about, Bella added: ‘But we should act sooner rather than later.’
‘Act? And just how can we act? Call the police?’
‘No, no, no,’ Bella said. ‘We act by calling a virus security review at their headquarters. I could let them know that there’s a deadly new hard drive disease on the loose and that I need to get into their offices tomorrow night to update their systems and make sure they can be defended against it.
You can obviously be my assistant and we’ll have a little snoop around the files while we’re there. ’
‘Bella, I thought you didn’t want to get involved with stories on… er… this company?’
‘I didn’t, but they’ve bugged your computer!’
‘I don’t even know that yet.’
‘It’s pretty likely, though.’
‘Suppose so… but isn’t what you’re suggesting… against the law?’
‘The law? I’m not sure the law has really caught up with the technology in this area. OK, we have to hang up now. We mustn’t be on for longer than forty seconds.’
‘Really…? You’re worrying me now.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow with details. You can be my temp, OK? Everyone has temps these days, even the Houses of Parliament. The fact that there isn’t more terrorism and industrial espionage carried out by temps is a mystery to me.’
‘Scaremonger!’ It was Don again, heckling. Bella was going to tell him all about this as soon as she put the phone down, Jo knew it.
‘Don can’t act on this info yet—’ Jo said.
‘No, no, of course not. I’ll tell him my livelihood is at stake, that always shuts him up. Come with me tomorrow, we’ll have a rake about and see what we can dig up.’
How could Jo refuse an offer like that? It would be Friday, Simon would have the girls, she’d be at work late, but then she could join Bella afterwards for a search of the Quintet files.
‘All right, you send me the where and when. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Now you get back to that nice husband of yours.’
‘Oh, I will. Are you having an early night?’
‘I should have an early night,’ Jo admitted. ‘But instead, I’m going to get changed and go out to meet my favourite chef.’
‘Really? You do realise that us old ladies need our beauty sleep,’ Bella teased.
‘Oh shut up, Bella!’ was Jo’s reply. Although it was after ten on a Thursday, with a mountain of shit to shovel tomorrow, she wanted to see him. She wanted to have a little bit too much to drink and some distance from Simon, the birthday party and her worries about Annette.
‘Rock on, girl,’ said Bella, sounding more than a little jealous, which made Jo feel better.
She always knew she was doing the right thing if Bella was jealous.
Spiral-patterned, figure-flattering, knee-skimming: she loved the cheap dress she’d put on to go and meet Marcus.
Just before she stepped into the nightclub he’d called from, Jo fluffed her hair and pressed her lips together to smooth out the latest application of lipstick.
Even if it was the dark, ‘ageing’ one because she hadn’t had a chance to get the flattering pink Tilly had recommended.
Jo bought a ticket at the door then paid to have her coat checked in.
She hurried through a twisting wallpapered corridor and came out into the packed, smoky space of the dance floor.
She’d never been here before, but she could appreciate immediately that it was nice: relaxed and groovy.
Lots of young bodies swaying together to something…
hip-hoppy? Jazzy? Soul-ish? She was far too old to know.
Slides were being projected onto the dancers and one of the walls.
Images of trees, leaves, bubbles, sky, clouds made it feel all the more dreamy.
She began to shuffle through the bodies, looking for Marcus.
‘Sorry, excuse me…’ But people made way without the slightest murmur.
They smiled, they waved, they said ‘hello there’, and let her pass.
This wasn’t London. This wasn’t a nightclub.
She’d obviously landed in some bubble of happy hippie heaven.
Or then again maybe everyone was on drugs.
Marcus couldn’t be found, so she took sticky stairs up to the mezzanine that curved right around the dance floor. It was busy up there too, bodies packed into groups, both standing and seated in small booths. Jo made a circuit, not able to stop herself from noticing how young everyone was.
Boys in jeans and tight T-shirts with wispy beards, girls wearing the bare-shouldered tops and tight high-waisted skirts.
But down there, at the table near the small, raised stage, were three grey-haired men drinking bottles of beer.
She leaned over the balcony a little further to see if she could spot anyone else older than her.
Look at the barman! She could be that boy’s mother!
She felt a hand slide over her back and round her waist, so she turned, hoping it was Marcus and not someone she’d have to tick off for being so forward.
‘Hiya,’ Marcus said before kissing her hello.
‘This is fun,’ she told him, breaking off from the kiss. ‘But I can’t stay too late.’
‘We better go dance then,’ was his reply. He put arms round her back, pulled her in and began to sway. ‘My friend, Jed’s band is just about to come on.’
‘Oh, you’re friends of the band, are you? Were you on the list?’ she teased. ‘Did they have your name at the door? Did you get out of paying the 50p entry?’
‘If the doorman only charged you 50p, then he must have fancied the pants off you,’ Marcus teased back, offering her his bottle of beer.
‘Fancied me? The old granny, when there are so many gorgeous young things here!’
‘You’re hardly the oldest person here.’
‘You’re right – I’ve spotted some grey-haired groovers down there.’ She pointed and Marcus’s eyes followed her finger.
‘That’s Jed’s dad,’ he explained.
‘Jed’s dad!’ she groaned.
‘Stop it,’ he insisted. ‘I’m taking you downstairs for a drink and a dance – to cheer you up.’
They went down hand in hand. Several bottles of beer later, she was pushed up close against him on the dance floor, beer in one hand, her chin resting on his shoulder, his hands round her waist, their hips bumping together.
Vaccinations, Simon, work problems – they’d all drifted from her mind.
She’d joined the forever young people in the happy, hippie bubble.
Her eyes were fixed on the ever-changing slide show on the wall, and her body seemed to be following the jazzed-up samba music just as easily as if she’d been brought up in Brazil, which was kind of ridiculous as she was a late-thirties London working mum whose idea of a good night out before Marcus was a lively dinner party, hosted by somebody else.
Astrud Gilberto was singing something about needing someone to samba through life with her and Jo found herself humming along.
She let her eyes close as she danced, savouring the realisation that she hadn’t felt so free, so careless and vaguely irresponsible for a very long time.
‘You feel good,’ Marcus whispered against her ear. Any moment now she was going to take her chin from his shoulder and kiss him on the mouth. Brush against his lips, push her tongue into his mouth and taste him once again. But she was enjoying the moment before that to the full.