Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ï>¿*********** Back to Debbie's point of view.

   It was strange to get on the train back to London and an office that I'd
last seen what felt like months ago.  Well, it was a *lifetime* ago, in
many ways, given that I'd subsequently lost and buried my long term
partner, discovered rather a lot about my sexuality - and my capacity for
forming friendships all of my own - plus, of course, gone some considerable
way to relocating my life and my work to virtually the middle of nowhere.
It had all been a bit of a whirl, I thought, relaxing into the journey with
a glass of wine and contemplating the e-mails and texts that I'd
accumulated while I'd been effectively incommunicado.

   Most of which - and the brief conversation I'd had with Seffi while I
was waiting for the train - suggested that the turmoil was anything but
over.  Only this time we should get some sort of final resolution - PCW had
made their move a little sooner than we'd expected, but the actual
substance was hardly surprising: They'd got cold feet, the corporates who'd
never quite accepted the idea of working with people like us had allowed
that anxiety to override the potential pecuniary gains and ...  all it had
taken was that concern to transmit itself to a potential client, giving
said client concerns of their own and a feedback loop had been established
which ...  well, which led to them trying to pull the plug.  Whether they
*could* pull the plug entirely was currently a moot point, given the legal
advice that we were getting, but it was clear that things were coming to a
head.

   Which, I felt, was probably a good thing, but also something that could
wait.  For the moment, I took a sip of the wine, sat back and watched the
scenery passing by ...  thinking of everything that had gone on while I'd
been up North ....

   * ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

   I dropped into the hospital to see Dave as soon as I got into London -
it was pretty much over the road from Euston, after all - but he was
completely out of it, having been doped up prior to the operation they'd
scheduled for later in the afternoon.  So I patted his hand for a while, as
you do, then I took myself off to the office to go and rally the troops. 
Well, OK, to catch up with the news, or chat with people I thought of as
friends ...  or something.  Maybe I was just being responsible, I thought,
taking myself up the stairs into the office.

   Which was pretty much as it always had been ...  laid back, perhaps, or
relaxed ...  or maybe just a chaotic mess.  Still, it was gratifying to see
the crew hard at work, accept the warmth of their welcome, see what they'd
achieved while I'd been away - Naz had pretty much completed the CastList
rewrite, and had, of course, come up with his apparently revolutionary
turbine blade design, Seff had built a pretty comprehensive database of
potential clients - interestingly focusing on technology firms rather than
the financial sector we'd previously concentrated on - and was busily
working through them to identify appropriate contacts within the various
organisations.  Even the new woman - Niusha, who I'd never met - seemed to
have contributed a new approach to using the consulting model more for
community activism than actual profit generation but, hey, I thought, that
was OK ...  realising as I did so just how far I'd come since my own days
on PCW's corporate treadmill.

   Actually, to be honest, Niusha was a bit of a fly in the ointment.  I
mean, I was an adult, so, no, of *course* I didn't get upset about the fact
that her stuff was all over my desk, that she greeted me, offered me a
coffee, like I was some sort of guest, that she acted generally in a way
that suggested that this was somehow *her* domain.  I wasn't even all that
miffed to see that she was both highly capable and also classically
beautiful in a very Arabian way, found myself wondering just what had gone
on between her and Dave, what its longer term significance might be to both
of them, wondered whether I should have been a bit more open with Dave
about my hopes for a future with him - not just in the work sense - but ...
Well, I hadn't known the idiot would manage to get himself confined to
hospital just as I got back to London, had my reasons for not wanting to
talk about stuff like that one th phone, even more when Phil had still been
alive.  Even so, this was a woman I could feel myself getting anxious
about, even as I knew that was really unfair to her, probably really unfair
to Dave ...  maybe pretty unfair to me.  And also really unhelpful, given
that we had a business to run.

   So I hauled Seffi away from her investigations and got her to go over
everything that had happened since I'd been away, all the e-mails, all the
phone calls, all the speculations and gossip that she'd managed to dig up.
Seff, of course, kept really detailed notes of *everything* so it took
time, but it was all there.  By the end of the working day, I was pretty
sure I had a plan, and one with a half way reasonable chance of success, at
least by my own estimation, so I packed everyone off home ...  and made a
few more calls of my own.

   * ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

   Next morning I was in early - I'd phoned the hospital and Dave was OK
but 'not receiving visitors' before about noon - and made everyone a
coffee, put some random music on - more bloody Grateful Dead, I realised -
and settled down to work.  I needed to talk to Gareth about the legal
situation, I knew, and had stuff for the team to do for the day.  For me, I
was going to go fishing - I was, after all, the person hereabouts with the
most direct experience of PCW and I thought my relationships with some of
them were good enough, still, that it might be possible to come up with
some useful information.  Preferably, information that they didn't realise
was useful ...

   So when the three of them staggered in, I set Naz to reviewing the
FreiBank data - Dave had explained the problem but he hadn't actually
written it up - and told him to get the process of patenting or registering
his blade design as soon as possible.  Partly this was because I knew it
would make him happy, but mainly because I knew it would *really* piss off
that bastard Karol, my would be rapist.  Seff, I asked to dig up everything
and anything she could about Carla's operation in the States, not least who
would be likely to attend the next weeks meeting on their behalf.  Carla
herself was apparently no longer at death's door but we'd not heard
anything directly from her so I felt it was wise to take precautions. 
Then, as an afterthought, asked her to see if she could come up with some
estimates for the likely market for wind turbines across the EU in the
foreseeable future - I felt sure that some consultancy somewhere must have
published some sort of report on the issue and being able to point to
additional income streams might be useful - and even to work with Niusha on
whether her *socially useful* concept might actually be used to generate an
income.

   And so the morning passed.

   * ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

   I nipped out to see Dave over lunchtime, surprised to find him sitting
up in bed but looking really pissed off, just having been told that he'd be
in said bed for a few days at least.  Actually, I think we'd both presumed
that they'd do some sort of keyhole surgery, get him in and out before he
managed to catch anything in the hospital but, no, it was a big scar that
he showed me - or at least a big dressing - and he'd have to stay.  I kept
the conversation light, as far as I could, given that I could see he was
still pretty zonked on the pain killers that were dripping into his arm
and, anyway, there's not a lot of privacy on a ward.  So we didn't go into
anything personal - I think his reaction when he saw me coming into the
room was reassurance enough about the way he thought about me ...  and my
reaction to seeing him at least alive ...  and the sight of his muscled
torso and a wisp of pubic hair as he displayed the damage ...  similarly so
about my deeper feelings for him.  Although we couldn't really pursue that
to its logical extent, I thought, at least until the stitches came out.  So
we just chatted for a while, me carefully avoiding anything much to do with
work, and might have carried on like that for the afternoon.  Except that
my mobile rang and I found myself back in work mode, kissing him goodbye
and heading out the building ...  en route to an assignation with a former
colleague who, I hoped, had a tale to tell.

   * ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

   In fact, walking into the city sushi place we'd arranged as a venue was
like walking back in time, at least for me.  Lots of men in suits, a few
decorative PAs, even one or two uber-bitch female executives, all shouting
at each other, the harassed and put upon waiting staff and ...  in one
corner, my one time boss.  Who, I thought did not look all that brilliant,
even the gloomy lighting failing to hide the exhaustion on his face, the
pallor of his skin.  Mind you, when he saw me I don't think he was too much
more impressed, giving a slight start when he realised that I was actually
wearing jeans and a light linen jacket, had let my hair grow a bit, hadn't
done the make up, that sort of thing.  Of course, I thought, there would
have been Memos if I'd pitched up to PCW dressed like this ...

   I sat down at his corner table, anyway, let him order for both of us,
wondering anew what this was all about.  Not that he seemed in too much
hurry to tell me, even attempting small talk until it became utterly
apparent that we had absolutely nothing other than work to talk about.  And
I didn't really want to go there first, if you see what I mean, as he had
actually invited me, now I wanted to know why ...  and not reveal my own
need for information before he did.  So I concentrated on my mineral water
and, eventually, raw fish, waited for him to make the move.

   Which he did after a particularly uncomfortably long pause in the
conversation, asking me how my new job was going.  I shrugged, slightly
evasively, said something about it being fun, working with nice people,
developing interesting ideas ...  wondered whether as senior an executive
could really be so far out of the loop on this one?

   Well, no.

   "Thing is, Deborah," he said, dead pan, "the way I heard it, your new
enterprise might be in some trouble, in terms of future finances" I
returned his appraising look evenly, said nothing, "and I was wondering if
you were looking around for anything else, yet?"

   I kept my gaze steady, said something about there being a few unresolved
issues with one of our capital funders but nothing that we couldn't
resolve. He shook his head and I could see him wondering just what sort of
game I was playing.  Well, OK ...  so he obviously knew quite a lot about
the situation, had probably seen the paperwork - maybe even wrote it.  Then
he laughed.

   "No, sorry," he said, not all that pleasantly, "I may have advised you
ages ago that you'd never cut it in the big time, to take your chances in
organisational development and all that useless shit ...  but I never once
thought you were stupid.  You know damn well that PCW - *we*, I suppose I
should say - have lost interest in your friend's little project ...  have,
actually begun to regard it as a possible corporate embarrassment.  You
will probably also be aware that, since its founder has been *hors de
combat*, your American friends in Bronstein Associates - the *other*
backer, Of course - have been haemorrhaging cash and - worse - reputation
and genuinely need to retrench if they're going to save their core
business. As far as I can see - and trust me, I'm in a position to know -
you haven't got a leg to stand on.  Or rather, you have nothing but a
rather pretty old Cumbrian slate works that you can't possibly afford to
pay for, let alone refurbish, and some very expensive contractual
commitments - oh and a group of eccentric, if not actually deluded,
colleagues.  Whilst ranged up against you is one of the most effective
corporate financial consultancies in the world - and one not in a mood to
compromise, either, I should probably add."

   He paused, probably for effect, maybe so that I'd have a chance to
discretely burst into tears or something.  What I actually did - aside from
suddenly realising just how much Ii'd always *hated* bloody sushi - was
just keep looking at him.  In fact, I hadn't known about Carla's lot's
problems - we reported to them, not the other way around - but somehow I
didn't think it would make a huge amount of difference ...  even if I
didn't quite no why.  The fact that I knew - and knew that he *didn't* know
- that Carla herself was very much on the mend - might have influenced this
but maybe it was just bloody mindedness.

   "Actually," I said, eventually, "this is all very interesting but, as
you've pointed out, hardly news.  So why the sudden invitation to lunch?  I
mean, we haven't worked together since you pointed out my deficiencies -
what - six or seven years ago?  I mean, thanks for the advice and all that,
but why the sudden reignited interest, *now?"*

   "Its quite simple ...  and completely above board," he said, blatantly
lying.  "Like I said, I always thought you were bright and no-one can argue
that you did a good job on the development side of things."

   He paused, and I waited until he continued, "Thing is, we've had to make
some changes in your old department and now we're looking for a new
Director for the division.  And, if you want it, the job's yours. 
Attractive package, too, I'm sure."

   I smiled slightly as he said this, watched his own smile turn truly
predatory as I reached under the table and picked up my bag.

   "Thanks for the offer," I said, "but ...  frankly ...  I'd rather chew
my own leg off ..."

   * ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *

   I got back to the office in a fairly exultant mood to find that May had
dropped in, not, as it turned out, to check that we weren't abusing Niusha
but rather to say hello to me and find out how Dave was.  I think she
noticed my near elation but presumably thought that it was to do with my
being back in London, having just seen Dave, whatever.  Naz and Seff were
happily getting on with the stuff that I'd set them, didn't seem to notice
the change either, both seemingly prepared to leave the strategic stuff to
me, which suited me down to the ground.

   So we talked for a while like friends do, then we got a little more work
done before I finally sent everyone home without enlightening them - or
even mentioning who it was I'd been out to lunch with.  Time enough for
that, I thought, enjoying being on my own in office and preparing to make a
few phone calls in privacy.

   Hell, I thought, if PCW are prepared to offer me a job, they must be
*really* worried ...

   ####################################################
   Feedback is nice ...  extrusionuk@googlemail.com