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  “I’m happy to negotiate, but we have no one to negotiate with yet. We’re not even close to either. It’s like selling your house – you’ve got to have someone interested in it first to talk price with, and we have no one.”

  The small room fell quiet as both men sat deep in thought. After a few minutes, Clinton got restlessly to his feet. Even though it was a cold, wet day outside, the space was stuffy and he needed some air.

  “I can’t think straight in here. It’s too warm. Want a coffee? I need a walk.”

  “No, thanks. Want me to come with you?”

  “No, I need to think. I won’t be long.” He headed out.

  Luke stood and walked across to the window. Raindrops ran down the glass, and he watched people scurrying through the street below, most wielding brightly coloured umbrellas, indicating that there were women under them. Men never carried coloured ones, usually sticking to black, blue or grey. Why was that, Luke wondered?

  He watched as Clinton emerged from the front door and made his way towards the small green park area and the coffee shop just past it. Luke knew his partner well; he needed his air and space. He even had a favourite seat in the park where he’d escape each day with his packed lunch, weather permitting, and watch the world go by. It was where Clinton did his best thinking.

  Turning from the window, all Luke could do was hope Clinton had a brain wave while he was out because, right now, they were out of ideas.

  Chapter Eight

  Clinton sat looking at no one in particular. Traffic chugged by in the light drizzle, hot exhaust fumes from buses rising like steam from a New York city underground vent. Clinton didn’t usually sit on a wet seat, but with little in the way of shelter in the little parkway, it was either that or sit indoors. The appeal of steamed-up café windows and equally steamed-up second-hand air was zilch – he needed to breathe. He’d purchased a newspaper from a vendor on his way there and used it as a seat cover, which at least kept his bum dry. There was no one else sat nearby; no one else was stupid enough to sit out on such a wet day without an umbrella. He’d probably regret it later, but that was later. He watched an older man shuffle past with a white woolly dog in a damp tartan jacket; the old man himself wore a matching deerstalker hat. Was that intentional, Clinton wondered? Matching outfits was something women with expensive handbags and huge diamond rings did, not elderly men in overcoats. Now there was a market, he thought: people spent silly money on their pets these days. As the man shuffled on, the small dog with its nose to the ground behind him, Clinton tried to focus on what he’d come out of the office to think about.

  Clinton was the sensible one of the two partners, the calm one, the one with the thinking brain, the logic. He needed data to back up his decisions, not just gut instinct like Luke did, because without data, without evidence, anything they came up with was only opinion. And the wrong opinion could lead you into a whole lot of trouble. He liked to be the thinker, the balance to Luke’s creative side, but at the same time, he felt the pressure of being the one to come up with the right answer all the time – and of being to blame if things went wrong. That was what being a partnership was all about, though: knowing your strengths and weaknesses. If creativity was needed, he had none; that was Luke. If confidence was needed in an important casual meeting, that was Luke too. But if it was a suit meeting, then Clinton was the man for the job. It made things interesting when their areas of expertise crossed over, and they were careful not to come across as a double act.

  Clinton smiled outwardly at the double act reference; he was too young to remember the chocolate caramel biscuit advert, but his mother referred to it regularly. Something about chewy caramel on the inside, delicious with a cup of tea, and the whole thing was portrayed as a double act. But thoughts of biscuit adverts were not going to solve the problem, so he decided to leave his relatively dry seat and walk a while. He sauntered along, taking shelter where he could from overhanging store fronts, until he came across a shop that had cheap umbrellas on a stand. He selected a black telescopic one, thinking he’d use it again at some stage. It would fit nicely in his bag, but really, there was no chance he’d ever remember it. He gave the cashier a £5 note and carried on up the pavement, knowing he wouldn’t get any wetter though his head was already soaked. Funny how light rain seemed to soak through so quickly.

  Luke, however, was warm and dry back in the small office space they shared with a couple of other small companies. It was the trendy thing to do. There was a perfectly good coffee machine in the kitchenette and Luke preferred that rather than spending cash on a fancy latte while they were desperate for money. He waited for the brew to finish, poured a dash of milk on the top and added sugar. He took a thoughtful sip and savoured the taste before swallowing it down. There was no view to speak of from the tiny kitchen window, nothing of note, nothing to stand and stare at while waiting for inspiration to strike. Just a few wet rooftops, glistening slate grey, some with disused chimney stacks left over from before gas and electric heat, when people took the time to actually light a fire. He’d always enjoyed the smell of a coal fire; it reminded him of his gran’s house, the brass coal scuttle sitting ready to top up the dying ashes when the need arose. There was always a smoke that went billowing up the chimney when damp coal was first thrown on, and as a boy Luke had been mesmerized by the wonderful smell it produced. He missed his gran. He even missed the coal smoke, but he could see why people chose the speedy way to heat their homes.

  He took his mug and wandered around the communal area looking at nothing in particular, trying to find inspiration in the mundaneness somehow. A voice caught his attention: it was Russell, a partner in a small accountant’s that also worked in the space. He was also their landlord.

  “Sorry, Russell, I was someplace else.”

  “So I see. Was it warmer and sunnier than here, perhaps?” Russell always had a cheery face, much like a butcher, though more likely from too much whiskey. Noses as bulbous as his rarely came from anything other than drink, and since Russell had the stomach to match, alcohol was the obvious culprit. And lots of it over a long time.

  “I wish, but no. Deep in thought trying to sort a problem.” He added, “The same problem as always.” His voice and enthusiasm were lower than a slug’s stomach.

  “No luck then, I take it?” Russell knew the boys were desperate for funding and had offered his own advice for what it was worth.

  “No luck, no. There will be an answer somewhere; there’s one for every problem. Our job now is to find that answer. I wish it were simple.” He sipped his coffee and rubbed the rim of the mug absentmindedly with his thumb.

  Russell patted Luke on the back as he passed back to his own office, leaving Luke to drift off back to where he had been before Russell had interrupted him. Absolutely nowhere.

  Chapter Nine

  By the time Clinton had returned, Luke was hard at work with his head buried in his computer. Even though they hadn’t yet got a firm plan of how to sort their cash issue, he figured he might as well spend some time researching what others had done before him.

  What had the world used before Google came along?

  There were all kinds of articles on generating funding, as well as forums and blog posts, and he began scrolling in the vain hope that something would stick out for him, something he’d missed during their first research. On a pad next to him, he wrote down a few key points to talk to talk to Clinton about. He also had a list of people to contact through his extended business network, see if he could buy them coffee and pick some brains or garner an introduction or two. If they could just get in front of a few more investors, that would be a start. Clinton himself was looking at the presentation content, though it would be down to Luke to recreate the data into something more visual. Sadly, he had few ideas at the moment.

  There was one other item on the pad, a word he’d written cryptically a few days earlier. Hit. He knew what it meant, but nobody else did. It was the last item on his list of things to re
search. He opened a new browser tab. He’d do the research, he told himself, then make a decision on whether it was something he could actually do.

  “It’s a fall-back option, nothing more,” he muttered out loud.

  “First sign of madness,” said a sing-song voice. It was Russell, who happened to be passing on his way out.

  “What is?”

  “Talking to yourself, though I hear answering yourself is far worse.” Russell smiled good-naturedly and gave a quick wink as the door swung shut behind him. How did he always manage to be so upbeat? Luke wondered. Maybe he needed to stew in as much whiskey as Russell did each evening.

  And some afternoons.

  He dropped his head back into the article he’d been reading before being distracted by the word hit on his pad.

  Chapter Ten

  Two hours later and Luke was still hard at it when Clinton approached his desk, rubbing his eyes, specs in his hand. He stretched his jaw and brows out and replaced his specs.

  “Shit, those figures are heavy going but I think I’m about there. Want to take a look?”

  “I’ll pass on the detail, thanks. Give me the main points.” Luke pushed his chair back, snagging a caster wheel on a rug just behind his desk. Annoyed, he pushed back a little harder than necessary and ended up rolling at speed across the room. It was what he needed to reawaken himself and focus on something else.

  “Steady on, Luke, you’ll do yourself a mischief,” Clinton said, laughing, as Luke rolled back towards his desk and stood. He stretched like a puppy preparing for a walk after a nap, quick and lithe.

  “So, what have you got, then?”

  Clinton pulled out the relevant pages from his folder and recited the figures.

  Luke looked at him blankly. “So, what does that mean exactly?”

  Clinton stared. “You don’t know what that means?”

  “No, not exactly. That’s why I’m asking.” Luke looked thoughtful for a minute and it was obvious he was pondering something.

  “Luke?” Clinton prodded him.

  “Hang on.” Luke was looking at the floor, deep in thought. Thirty seconds or so passed before he spoke. “I wonder if that’s it?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “We need to change the way we present this data. We need to make it more relatable, so it means something more, something they can visualize easily rather than a bunch of numbers.”

  “I’m listening. Go on.”

  “Do you remember when the iPod first came out and Steve Jobs showed it to the world?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, he said having an iPod was like having one thousand songs in your pocket. He didn’t say ‘It’s got a five-gig hard drive.’ He related it to something people understood straight away – one thousand songs in your pocket. People could instantly see that.” Luke was suddenly excited. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

  “I do, yes, I do. Do you think that’s what we need to do then, before we present this to anyone else?”

  “I’m certain of it. It worked for Steve Jobs. Why wouldn’t it work for us? We just follow the same concept, keep it clear and easy.”

  “Well, we’ve got to present this on Friday. Do you think there’s enough time? It makes sense to change it beforehand.”

  “Yes, it does. What we’ve been doing so far hasn’t worked, so let’s not waste another meeting doing it that way. Let’s make this happen for Friday.”

  They stood quietly for a moment longer contemplating their new direction. Could they pull it off?

  “This is what I suggest we do.” Clinton took charge. “I’ll pull out the main points, then together we’ll see how they can be turned into something more recognizable. Then we’ll work on finding the right way to present the data.”

  “I’ll see if I can find that presentation he did and take it a step further.”

  “Right. You start on the look and feel, and I’ll get the data and main points.”

  Clinton looked at Luke and said, “Do you think we have something now?” His tone was almost timid.

  “I hope so,” Luke added.

  In the back of his mind, the cryptic word hit blinked at him.

  Hit.

  Hit.

  Chapter Eleven

  Luke and Clinton nursed bottles of lager, but neither was drinking. An unopened packet of crisps sat between them along with the silence. The only conversation came from other drinkers in the pub on a Friday lunchtime. A slot machine in the corner clanked out coins to a lucky winner, a burly man by the bar laughed heartily at his mate’s joke, and the sound of music playing in the background was a quarter turn too loud.

  The boys couldn’t have cared less anyway. Their revised presentation had also fallen flat. The slug sure had a low belly.

  “On the positive side, the new style of presentation went down well, don’t you think?” Luke was ever the optimistic one.

  “Doesn’t matter too much now, does it? They still said no.” It was a statement rather than a question, and it sounded petulant. The fact of the matter was it had been an important meeting, because they’d exhausted their list of contacts and prospective investors. This last group had been their remaining hope. Now that hope was gone, and in its place was ‘What next?’ They’d both invested all they had personally, which wasn’t much, and cut corners at every opportunity. Their credit cards were maxed out, overdrafts at their limit. The added coincidence of its being Friday seemed to accentuate the fact that they had driven to the end of the road. There was no more money to be begged or borrowed. It was a good job they both still lived at home and had roofs over their heads.

  The barman turned the volume up yet more on the stereo system as Sam Smith crooned Stay with Me, adding to Luke and Clinton’s depressed mood. To the lovers in the opposite corner of the pub sharing fries and sandwiches for lunch, the song was perfect; to the two deflated men, it was far from it. Clinton took a swig from his bottle. The golden liquid held no real interest for him; it might as well have been lemonade.

  “So, what’s next then, do you think? Time to give up?” Clinton looked at Luke. He was the creative one – surely he’d think of something?

  “Hell, no. We’ve come too far and invested too much to let it drift off with the next tide. I’m not doing that.”

  “Then should one of us get a job, to bring some cash in? We’ve got rent due in a couple and Russell has already been great with us. I don’t want to overstep things.”

  “Maybe we should move out from there, operate from a café like other entrepreneurs. All we’d need is an internet connection.”

  “True enough, but what about the rent coming due? How are we going to fund even that?” Clinton reached for the bag of crisps and opened it. There was no point wasting food at a time like this. He pulled out a small handful of cheese and onion fried potato and handed the rest of the bag to Luke.

  “Getting a job – one that pays enough, that is – won’t happen overnight, though. It will take months. Unless you want to scrub floors, which is about all either of us would get in the next forty-eight hours, realistically. Even then, they’d say we were overqualified and probably not take us on,” said Luke morosely.

  “Well, at this rate, we might have to try. At least if we worked in a chippy we’d get fed into the bargain,” said Clinton gloomily.

  Sam Smith finished his song and Adele piped up.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! What’s with the depressing music? It’s like the last dance on a Saturday night in the sad part of town.” Luke slammed his hand on the table and the barman glanced over, although he left the music as it was. Luke shook his head solemnly. Maybe the guy was feeling depressed himself – or if he wasn’t before, he sure would be now. He turned to Clinton and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here before I set fire to the damn rain myself.”

  That at least raised a smile on Clinton’s face and he quickly drained the rest of his lager in one. Grabbing his jacket, he caught up wi
th Luke, who was already nearly at the front entrance, and they went back out into the cold street. The rain had stopped, at least.

  “Where to, Boss?” It was Luke’s way of being a little submissive when he needed to be. If Clinton was the serious data guy, that made him the boss man, at least for today.

  “Better tell Russell we can’t pay the rent, then I’m off home. Maybe a change of scenery on a cold Friday afternoon will do some good. I’m not doing much else here. I suggest you do the same.”

  “I’m not letting this mean it’s all over. Rover,” Luke said firmly. “It’s another setback, but that’s all. I’m hopeful we can carry on, aren’t you?”

  Clinton stopped walking and turned to meet Luke’s eye. “I’m really not sure, to tell you the absolute truth. I don’t see how, beyond prostitution or drug dealing.”

  “What happened to hit man, and where did prostitution come in?”

  “Whatever, smartarse. You know what I’m saying. They’re all illegal or dangerous.” Clinton started to walk off again and Luke sped up to meet his pace.

  “I hear you. Look, you’re right. Let’s tell Russell, then head home. The break will do us good.”

  So that’s what they did. Russell knew it was coming but didn’t seem to care too much.

  “Glad to have been a desk or two while you needed it,” he’d said. “See you around.”

  Luke and Clinton had gathered up their scant belongings and left the building, each with their laptop in one hand, plastic carrier bag filled with odds and sods in the other. No one claimed the begonia; it stayed in place on the windowsill, where it had sat for the last few months.