Not Dead Yet

to fix most software problems that occurred in the company.
    Eric Whiteley liked computers, because he was happier interacting with machines than people. Machines didn’t bully you or make fun of you. And he liked figures, because there was no ambiguity about numbers; there was always a satisfying precision. His job was to audit the accounts for clients of his firm, from the figures supplied to him, to do the company payroll, and occasionally to visit the firms to assist one of the accountants going through the books. He had been doing this job for twenty-two years, and expected to continue for at least another thirteen years until he reached theretirement age of sixty-five. Beyond that he had no plans. ‘We’ll see where the wind blows,’ he replied to work colleagues, on the rare occasions, such as the Christmas party, when someone asked him that question.
    He did not like the Christmas party, always stayed the minimum amount of time he needed in order not to appear rude, and avoided conversations with his colleagues. After two decades of working with many of the same people, none of the other employees or partners of Feline Bradley-Hamilton knew any more about Eric Whiteley’s private life than they had on the day he first joined the firm.
    He bought his lunch from the same sandwich shop in Brighton’s Bond Street every day of the week, and his menu never varied. Tuna mayo with sliced tomato on wholegrain, two twists of the pepper grinder, one shake of salt, a Twix bar, an apple and a bottle of sparkling water. Then he would buy a copy of the Argus from a newsagent and scurry back to the sanctuary of his office, where he would spend the remainder of his lunch hour eating and reading the paper all the way through – except for the sports pages, which did not interest him – and ignoring the phone if it rang.
    Today, his eyes were suddenly drawn to the top-right column on the third page. It was an advertisement.
     
    FILM EXTRAS WANTED!
    EARN UP TO £65 PER DAY TO APPEAR IN
    “THE KING’S LOVER”,
    STARRING GAIA & JUDD HALPERN.
    PRODUCTION STARTS IN BRIGHTON NEXT WEEK.
     
    There was a phone number, an email address and a website.
    He carefully cut out the advertisement and placed it in the middle drawer of his desk. Then he returned to his lunch.

    The advertisement caught the eye of a number of other people in the city at the same time as Eric Whiteley. One was Glenn Branson, who was sitting on a train with Bella Moy, heading to the Crimewatch studio in Cardiff. He was eating a banana and scanning through the newspaper. He wrote down the details excitedly. Sammyand Remi were nuts about Gaia! His estranged wife Ari was doing her best to poison his kids against him. Maybe he could get them roles as extras on the set – how cool would that be? And it would have to be worth a lot of brownie points in his relationship with them.

    Another person reading the advertisement with interest was the occupant of room 608 in The Grand Hotel in Brighton, who had been going through the newspaper’s small ads in search of a hooker.
    He was feeling tired and jet-lagged, and was hyper with too much caffeine, but he didn’t care, he poured himself another cup now, then reached for the phone, checked how to make a local call, and dialled the number given in the advertisement. Moments later he heard the tell-tale delay, after the call was picked up, that he was through to a voicemail recording.
    His anger surged. He hated that system, that whole culture of voicemail. That was how people fobbed you off, how they screwed you.
    ‘ If you’re phoning to register interest in being an extra in The King’s Lover, please leave your name, age and a number we can call you right back on. Alternatively you can email us your details, together with a recent photograph and a contact number. Thank you for calling Brooker Brody Productions! ’
    For an instant, gripping the receiver hard, he felt the urge to tear it free of its cord, and half the guts of the phone out with it. But then he calmed a little. He hadn’t come all this way to trash a hotel telephone.
    Not that he knew, at this moment, precisely what he had come to do. Something, that was for sure. Something a lot of people were going to regret.
    He left his name and number and hung up.

37
    Roy Grace liked the design and location of Brighton’s Woodvale Crematorium. In his experience, the typical urban crematorium was a soulless and charmless place, because it existed for