Page 20 of The Cut
The chimney is massive, at least fifty feet high. The moonlit sky is just visible in the distance, as droplets of water run down the smoke-stained walls of the flue. Ben hammers at the bricks with an ice pick, banging iron pitons from Davis’s climbing kit into the mortar to create steps. He threads rope and secures finger grips, building a makeshift spiral ladder around the narrow square sides of the chimney. Slowly but surely, Ben hauls himself up on to the lintel of a smoke shelf and stares up through the brick shaft to the sky above. Broken pieces of masonry crumble down into the void below. The distant sounds of hammering and heaving echo down the brick stack and out into the vast cavern as Ben finally summits, pushing himself up on to the chimney crown.
‘Hey, come on up, to the Crow’s Nest. I can see everything from here!’ His voice seems miles away.
Annie’s head cranes in through the broken gap. ‘Ben (Ben) … Ben? (Ben?)’ Her voice echoes off the walls. ‘I’m going home. It’s too dark. We’ll come back in the daylight, OK? (OK?)’ There’s no answer. Annie withdraws and starts to head back down the ladder.78
‘Chicken shit,’ Lynette mutters, just as Annie is out of earshot and before her hand grabs the rope. ‘Room for one more up there? I’m going all the way, Ben.’
Annie waits at the bottom of the ladder as Dave jumps down the last few rungs, trying to style out some last-ditch bravado. ‘Glad to be back on terra firma … that was a close call.’ He checks the camera slung over his shoulder, wiping the lens with his sleeve.
‘I’m sorry about what they said. I hate it.’ She places her hand on his arm.
‘It’s OK, we’re used to it. All the names, all the games.’ He winks at her.
In the half light, Annie suddenly notices his deep-green eyes, perfect skin and jaw line, his beautiful black wavy hair. For a second, she can’t breathe. Dave moves his arm away from hers and flushes.
She inclines her head towards him. ‘Why do you film everything?’
‘I dunno …’ In the darkness, his eyes sparkle at hers. ‘It’s a documentary … of life, I guess.’
‘Hmm. Endless hours of nonsense, probably?’
‘Not always. Sometimes you catch something really special. Like now.’ Dave stands smiling at her.
A shaft of moonlight between moving clouds momentarily drapes Annabel Maddock in a gossamer cloak of ethereal white light. She smiles at him. ‘You missed it.’
‘Nah … it’s up here.’ He gently taps a finger to his head. As Annie turns, he secretly switches off the camera, held at his waist like a gunslinger. It’s all there on Dave Patel’s video tape, shot with a very specific camera. In truth, he never fails to capture what he needs.
79
14
NOVEMBER 2023
Standing at the pinnacle, on the top floor of a tower he had designed, had become some kind of ritual for Ben. The year the IF Group collaborated with the Danish design team under Bjarke Ingels on the Serpentine Gallery, they’d hit the headlines. It had been a hard climb to the top, from those first rough rungs crudely hammered into the brick of a disused chimney.
That night, all those years ago, Ben had stood at the very highest point of Blackstone Mill in his Crow’s Nest. He’d surveyed the surrounding villages and farmland in the moonlight and felt a profound sense of disappointment. His heart had sunk as he scanned the flat, uninteresting landscape of the rural Midlands, wondering how the hell he would escape from the drudgery of this life. A life that was slowly dragging his father into a painful grave and most of Ben’s hopes and dreams with him. But that night, he had followed the source of the River Soar, glistening in the darkness as far as his eye could see. Later, at home, he had found an old Ordnance Survey map in the sideboard and had traced its course, following it out to the sea and far beyond. He vowed that one day he would carve a path for himself just like that river.
Over the years, he’d become famous for the extraordinary storytelling hidden within his architectural designs, but deep down Ben knew he wasn’t really an innovator. The evolution tower in Moscow was just a twisted facsimile of Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower in New York. The series of thrusting shards that80assaulted the sky out in the United Arab Emirates desert had been audacious vanity projects, empty cathedrals of architecture for architecture’s sake.
The flurry of emails he had received just before take-off was weighing on his mind. The second the plane landed from Stockholm he’d turned his phone back on, to a tsunami of texts from Lars Sorensen.
‘Call me ASAP.’
The IF loans were leveraged with overinflated valuations. At the time of the transaction, no one batted an eyelid, but now that IF was sinking, they’d suddenly been paying a lot more attention.
Ben took his foot off the accelerator and let the autopilot take over. Something had to be done, there had to be a way out. A black shape shifted aggressively into his rear-view mirror. Ben checked his speed and moved over from the outside lane. A motorbike sped past, nearly clipping his wing mirror. Ben clamped his jaw tight and gripped the wheel. He was tired and irritable from his trip, and he wanted to get home.
The call from the IF business manager came through. Ben hesitated then tapped accept. ‘Hey, Ben, it’s Lars, I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’ His face was pixelated on to the touchscreen display.
‘Yep. Just landed. Driving home, then … family time, Lars, you know how it goes. Why are you calling me on a Friday night?’
‘You didn’t sign off on the Petersburg bridging loan. Mukash Das is livid. He wanted this done and dusted before the weekend.’ Lars’s tone had lowered into a passive-aggressive threat.
‘I told you, the lender hadn’t received the toxicology report, they’re withholding funds until Monday, they want the data.’ Ben’s hands gesticulated sharply off the wheel; he was exasperated.81
‘I had an intern do some work on the forms; I sent them over.’ Lars was now leaning in close, his red face on the touchscreen like he was peering into a shop window.
‘I’m not an idiot, Lars. This is my neck on the line.’ Ben’s head was about to explode.
