Chapter 19
Jake took Derrick to the front desk.
The concierge stood up and wished Jake a good morning. Then his eyes roved to Derrick, registering his tear-streaked face.
‘Derrick – what have you done?’ The concierge turned back to Mr Campbell-Ross without even giving Derrick a chance to speak. ‘Mr Campbell-Ross, I want to sincerely apologise for anything Derrick—’
Jake held up his hand and produced two envelopes from his jacket pocket, one for the concierge and the other to be handed to Aubrey on his immediate return. They both contained identical letters, which he had written that morning. They were letters of authority giving Derrick, his mother Joyce and his brothers Joseph and Matthew the right to reside in Apartment Two on the forty-ninth floor. The lease was now in Derrick’s name. It was imperative that Aubrey was made aware of this.
As the concierge opened his letter, Jake’s thoughts drifted back to the night before Christmas Eve, almost seven months earlier, when Aubrey had been helping an ex-employee to vacate his apartment. For some reason, the employee had been fired from his job at the Ross Corporation, which was most unusual. Jake didn’t know the circumstances, and didn’t ask. All he knew was that part of Aubrey’s remit was to escort someone who could no longer reside in an apartment out of the building. In other words, kick them out.
Strangely, Jake remembered his name – Mr Beale. ‘This one went quietly,’ Jake recalled Aubrey saying. He wondered in passing what had happened to the man. The concierge confirmed that nobody had been ‘helped’ out of their apartment for some time, which was exactly what Jake would not want to hear had happened to Derrick in his absence. This was what made Aubrey receiving his letter so important.
Given the chance, Jake was sure Derrick would move heaven and earth to earn the right to be in Apartment Two on the forty-ninth floor. Jake would be watching the future of the Ross Corporation with interest, and the future of Derrick in particular, as he had a strong feeling that the future success of Derrick and the company would become inextricably linked.
‘Bloody hell!’ The concierge had finished reading his letter. His eyes darted to Derrick, a look of disbelief fixed on his craggy features.
Although Jake had left an identical letter for Aubrey, he said, ‘Please tell Aubrey Jones the news, the next time you see him.’
‘That I will, Mr Campbell-Ross.’
Jake anticipated that when word spread of the new occupant on the forty-ninth floor, there would be a lot more confusion, perhaps envy, certainly anger. Jake expected that Derrick, taking up his new junior post, would not have an easy time of it at the offices of the Ross Corporation; his peers would resent him, his superiors would distrust him, and Derrick’s workload would most probably double or triple as a result.
It wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, that was for sure. Jake imagined that some of Derrick’s peers would be waiting for him to fall flat on his face. But Jake knew that Derrick wasn’t afraid of hard work. Derrick wasn’t afraid of an unkind word. Experience had taught him there were far scarier things out there in the real world to be afraid of if he failed. In the meantime, there wasn’t anything anybody could do about Jake’s decision to give Derrick the apartment.
Jake, along with Marcus and William, were majority shareholders in the company. He co-owned the building, and the apartment. That hadn’t changed. He could do with it what he wanted – and he liked Derrick. Jake was well aware that he was disrupting the status-quo; he was turning things upside down. But the ship was already dangerously listing; no one was at the helm. Two of the three captains had already effectively jumped ship – Jake to the classroom, William to the golf course – and the third was killing himself slowly. At the rate Marcus was going, Jake doubted there would be any Marcus juniors in the future to take the helm, even if they wanted to.
He thought that it might surprise Ross employees to learn that if anybody could guarantee their futures, and the future of the company, it was a young man who had the greatest reason of all to keep his apartment, to keep the Ross Corporation afloat – his family. That was all that mattered; keeping them safe, keeping them alive. Jake could think of no greater motivator than that.
Over the years, the Ross Corporation had given Jake so much; it had guaranteed his future. He didn’t want to just abandon ship without putting something back. But for the past few months, since he’d left, he had racked his brain for what that might be. Now the answer – the future of the company – was standing right beside him.
On the spur of the moment, Jake decided to show Derrick one last thing before he left.
‘Come with me, Derrick.’ Jake returned to the lift, conscious of the fact that the concierge, still standing there open-mouthed, still holding Jake’s letter, was watching their every move.
Jake shepherded Derrick towards a lift – not the one they’d taken, but a different lift reserved for the occupant of the fiftieth floor.
Jake imagined that it would surprise Derrick to learn that neither he nor Marcus had ever set foot in that top-floor apartment, or been all that curious to look. Not until now.
Jake glanced at Derrick, who was standing right beside him outside the lift. The look on his face said, you have got to be shitting me, except this time he was too surprised to utter a sound.
‘I shit you not,’ said Jake, a smile creasing his lips, before turning his attention to the keypad. The lift wouldn’t open until he entered the keycode. Six empty boxes flashed on the small digital display. Since Jake never had occasion to use the lift, he had no idea what it was, but knowing William, it would have to be relatively easy to remember, and knowing William, it would have to be something connected with the family. He was guessing, but if it consisted of six digits, then a date of birth would be the logical answer.
The most obvious choice was his wife, Grace’s, date of birth. Jake knew the day and month, but he wasn’t entirely sure of the year. Several wrong attempts later suggested either he was getting the year wrong, or Grace’s birthday was not the code. Several more increasingly ridiculous guesses pitching her age anywhere between thirty-five and one hundred and two confirmed the code was not related to Grace.
Jake swallowed hard and keyed the next most obvious choice – Eleanor. She had always been William’s favourite. To Jake’s surprise, the lift remained stubbornly stationary. The first born, that was probably it; Jake tried Marcus’s date of birth next – still no dice. He was running out of options.
Finally, he keyed in William’s date of birth; an absurd idea for a security code, and the least obvious choice, but what the hell – Jake keyed it in. Nothing happened. Jake was now stumped. He guessed neither of them would get to see that top-floor apartment.
Derrick, who had been watching Jake’s attempts at cracking the code with interest, made a suggestion. ‘Why not try your date of birth?’
Jake thought that his own date of birth was not the most obvious choice. But then, on the other hand, maybe as a security measure that was the point. Jake glanced at him and shrugged. ‘Worth a try.’ Jake keyed it in. To his complete surprise, the six-digit code was accepted and the light above the lift flicked on. Jake turned to Derrick, who was smiling from ear to ear.
‘Well done you,’ said Jake.
Jake pressed the illuminated button indicating an up arrow. As far as he was aware, the lift had not been used in years, decades even, and he was feeling some trepidation at the thought of getting into it. Perhaps he should have checked with the concierge to find out the last time it had been serviced. For security reasons, the lift remained on the fiftieth floor.
To Jake’s amazement, something was happening; he could hear the peculiar ghostly twang and yawn of metal cables straining in the empty lift shaft on the other side of the door as the lift began its descent.
They waited.
Jake began to sweat. The thought of a lift, a confined space, was not good at the best of times, but one that had not been used in years was even worse. Jake suddenly hoped the lift died before it reached the ground floor.
It was not his lucky day; the lift door opened.
Jake and Derrick peered inside. He didn’t know what they were expecting; a red carpet perhaps, the walls adorned with beautiful motifs or pictures, a seat even. But there was none of that. It was just an ordinary lift, identical in every way to the one Derrick rode up and down in all day.
Before they stepped inside, Jake felt it necessary to tell Derrick the truth about the apartment on the top floor; Derrick would have to be prepared for an apartment that although on a far grander scale, in all probability would appear quite neglected. They would be the first people to step inside for years – Jake doubted that even the cleaners had access.
‘Ready?’ said Jake.
The lift whisked them up to the top floor. The lift door opened onto a wide, expansive hallway. Derrick and Jake exchanged glances. The hallway was spotless. Jake shrugged – so he’d been wrong about the cleaners. They stepped out of the lift. At Jake’s invitation, Derrick went off to explore.
Jake held back; something didn’t feel right.
Based on the layout of his own apartment, Jake took the corridor to the left, down which he assumed, rightly, he’d find the living areas. Jake headed for the kitchen first. It turned out to be a twenty-foot-square monster of a room with monster appliances, solid oak units fronting three walls and a matching island in the centre of the room. Just like the hall, the room was spotless. Jake ran a finger along a section of the worktop to reveal not a speck of dust.
He casually sauntered around the room until his attention was drawn to a shelf above the kitchen worktop containing a row of black tins – round and square – delicately patterned in red and gold Japanese designs. He came to a halt in front of them. He knew exactly what they were. He stared at them for some time in mounting disbelief. Finally, he reached out and randomly picked one off the shelf. He opened the lid just as Derrick came racing into the kitchen, skidding to a halt in front of Jake.
‘Mr Campbell-Ross,’ he gulped, ‘I was looking for you everywhere.’ He was out of breath. ‘You need to come see.’ He pointed. ‘There are clothes in the bedroom cupboard.’ He whispered, ‘I think somebody lives here.’
Jake looked down at the open tin in his hands. He brought it to his nose and sniffed – tea.
‘Derrick, we need to leave – now.’
The look on Derrick’s face said he knew something was up. Derrick got to the lift ahead of Jake.
Jake did not follow him inside. ‘Derrick, I want you to do something for me.’
Jake had an idea. He sent Derrick back to the ground floor, back to retrieve the letter from the concierge that he had written to Aubrey to inform him that he’d handed over his apartment to Derrick. ‘And for goodness’ sake, don’t tell him what you’d discovered up here.’ As far as everyone knew, nobody had stepped foot in that apartment, let alone lived there.
Jake didn’t want anybody else finding out about his discovery – not just yet. He waited by the lift, thinking about the tea leaves he’d found in the tins. Aubrey was a tea connoisseur. It was that fact that had given him away. Jake found the nerve of the man quite simply astounding. This was William’s apartment, the head of the company. How had Aubrey got away with it all this time? As far as all the other occupants of the building were concerned, Jake included, Aubrey was located somewhere on one of the forty-eight floors. Jake wouldn’t know for sure which floor or which apartment because Jake had never actually seen it – until now. Why had that never struck him as odd?
The apartment being empty did not give Aubrey the right to live there instead. Unless … Jake was thinking about giving Derrick permission to live in the apartment below. Had William given his permission? It was possible – he and Aubrey went way back.
Jake got out his mobile phone. He wanted to speak to William and find out if he had given Aubrey permission to use the apartment in his absence. Jake caught sight of the clock on the wall in the kitchen just above the shelf with the tins of fancy tea. He had a flight to catch. He really didn’t have time to get into it all just then. He put his mobile back in his pocket. It would have to wait.
He had the impulse to ring Aubrey’s number – Aubrey’s mobile phone was always switched on, whatever the hour. But until he knew the truth, that would have to wait too. Jake didn’t want to blindly stumble into something he knew nothing about until he got his facts straight.
Jake stood by the lift, his eyes drifting to the adjacent door. Behind that door was a flight of stairs leading down to the forty-ninth floor. Jake knew about those stairs. They were there in case the lift failed. There were similar stairs down to each floor, as with any building, for fire safety reasons.
While he waited for Derrick’s return, he thought about Aubrey riding up in Derrick’s lift and exiting on the forty-ninth floor, supposedly to see Marcus – who in truth was hardly ever there. He must have then taken the flight of stairs up to this apartment, unbeknown to anybody else in the building.
If he’d taken the lift straight up to the fiftieth floor, the concierge might have noticed. Similarly, anybody using Derrick’s lift, or Derrick himself, might have heard the other one moving up and down in the adjacent lift shaft. The fact that Derrick looked just as anxious as Jake felt when they had got into this lift suggested that in the time Derrick had worked there, he hadn’t once heard or seen this lift being used.
Thinking about it now, it made perfect sense. In his role as a trouble-shooter for the company, dealing with some of the more unsavoury issues as they arose, Aubrey would undoubtedly have access to all areas of the building with impunity, including the top floor. For this reason, Aubrey could have easily taken it upon himself to live up there with or without William’s permission.
Was Aubrey one of those people, full of his own self-importance, who had ideas above his station? Did Aubrey think that his close association with William over the years made him part of the success story of the Ross Corporation, even though William had founded and built the company from scratch and Aubrey was merely along for the ride?
Jake scratched his head. Until he spoke with William or Aubrey, he really had no clue.
The sound of a lift door on the floor below told Jake that Derrick would be back at any moment with the letter. As soon as the lift door opened, he handed it to Jake without setting foot outside the lift. Derrick looked anxious to leave.
Jake took the letter and placed it on the sideboard next to the phone. He hesitated. The idea was that by leaving the letter there, Aubrey would realise that Jake was on to him – he now knew that Aubrey was living on the top floor. On the one hand, Jake thought what did it matter? He loved the guy dearly, and didn’t really care whether he had William’s permission or not. He bet William wouldn’t really care either. Aubrey worked tirelessly for the Rosses, always had done. On the other hand … he glanced at Derrick. Aubrey wasn’t the head of the corporation, and he never would be. Unlike Derrick. Jake didn’t know how long Aubrey had been living up there, but he didn’t want Aubrey getting too comfortable ensconced on the top floor. Jake had it earmarked for his prodigy – the young man standing before him, who he had no doubt would make it to the top.
Jake decided to leave the letter there. Aubrey needed a reality check, and Jake had just given him one. This discovery was for the best. Perhaps it was time Aubrey found an apartment that suited his position.
Jake swore Derrick to secrecy. Derrick promised not to breathe a word of what he had seen. Ross employees would have enough to deal with when they found out about the new occupant of Jake’s apartment without finding out that Aubrey was already ensconced on the top floor.
They reached the ground floor. Jake picked up his bag and held out his hand to Derrick. ‘Good luck, Derrick.’
‘When will I see you again?’
Jake smiled at Derrick and left him to finish the longest day at work he would ever experience. It would be seven long hours before he could tell his family the incredible news; they would be moving in as soon as possible.
Jake was just turning to go, when he had a thought. ‘Oh, by the way, Derrick. I have some news for you.’
A few minutes later, Jake turned away from the lift, smiling. Derrick was whooping with joy outside the lift at the news that he had secured the new position within the company.
Jake saw the concierge throwing Derrick a look as Jake passed by the desk. Jake walked resolutely past the concierge, aiming to make a quick exit.
Harry the doorman proved more difficult to avoid. He had spotted Jake’s approach; he was already holding open the door, and he was looking at Jake’s bag.
‘Goodbye, Harry,’ said Jake walking straight past him out of the door and down the street.
‘Goodbye, sir,’ said Harry to his departing back, a question hanging in the air: the question of Jake’s return.