Standards of behaviour were indeed good, as Weber had mentioned, but (and again, Richard only discovered this later) Weber detested homosexuals. Fortunately, he had found a way of disguising these feelings, or rather, of using them to his advantage. He was known as a sadist. Indeed, on the occasions when he had to, he took great delight in meeting some young boy or other and taking him to the private rooms to administer a good beating. No one questioned this. Weber had noticed, with disgust, that it was within the acceptable parameters of homosexual behaviour, along with pretending to be a dog or other animal.

That Friday, Richard went to see Anita, the Resource Allocation Planner. His luck was in: Anita offered him a project at a tier-one bank in London – Royal Commercial Bank. The project had been running for a few months, so it was still early days for a bank of that size. It was even better than Oldhams; ideal for his purposes.

“It’s a big project, Richard. There are a number of different roles that you might be suitable for.”

“Such as…?”

“There’s a role for Technical Support to the Financial Reporting Business Analyst. You’d be making sure that the BA documents get converted into proper functional specs, etc. There’s also a Release Management role – software deployment, and so on.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. He didn’t want to seem over-eager. Normally he would much prefer the BA role, but if he was personally responsible for Release Management then deploying the Zima software would be so much easier. “Can I think about it?”

A look of annoyance hardened Anita’s face. “I have to ask you to decide fairly soon. There’s a whole list of people trying to get themselves assigned to this project. It’s a biggie, as I’m sure you realise.”

“I quite fancy the Release Management role for myself actually,” he blurted out.

“Discuss it with Germain,” Anita said, relaxing back into her seat. “He’s Project Director for this one. He wants you to meet him on the bank’s premises at one p.m.”

◆◆◆

Clouds slid down from the sky, disappearing into the ground in front of Richard as he approached the RCB HQ by traversing a small plaza in which fountains played. When he was really close he was able to observe himself approaching. He looked busy and businesslike, the clouds surrounding him and still slipping downwards behind his reflection. And then it was all gone; the sky, clouds, and Richard himself all simply vanished as sliding doors opened briefly, revealing the interior of the building.

Without changing pace, he entered and was swallowed up into its vast atrium. He turned slightly to look upwards through the plate glass, taking a last glance at the clouds and sky. They had resumed their normal aspect; instead of slipping down the mirrored exterior of the building, they were back where they belonged, high above the ground making an imaginary heaven for imaginary angels.

Richard joined a quarter-hour-long queue of externals trying to get temporary permission to enter the building for similar reasons to himself. That is, they were all consultants or contractors who had some business at the bank. Richard wondered how many disparate systems the bank must be running that regularly required this number of external people. Eventually, he had his temporary pass and someone was on his way down to accompany him to the meeting room. It was a young bank employee who made his excuses and left Richard to open the meeting room door himself. Seemingly, the young man had urgent business of his own.