Page 7 of The Cut
Ben raises his eyebrows, his hands still buried deep into his pockets, trying to stop the little bulge from growing down there. ‘Please?’
A stark light spills from her bedroom door and the room is suddenly illuminated. Annie turns sharply, putting her back to the window and sitting on the sill. Ben watches as she closes the curtain, the slightest shake of her head warning him off. And then the dogs go crazy. The hall light flicks on and the front door swings open, triggering the outside light. Mr Maddock stands in slippers, holding the dogs back with his legs, a half-eaten cheese sandwich in his hand. His rough Derbyshire accent bellows across the silence.
‘Go on, buzz off. She’s not coming out, and if you keep comin’ back, she’ll be grounded.’
‘Sorry, sir. I just wanted to ask her about some biology homework.’ There’s a blend of defiance and sarcasm in Ben’s tone that doesn’t go unnoticed.
‘Biology? I’ll bet you did.’ The remainder of the cheese sandwich is shoved in whole as the massive frame of Farmer John32towers in the doorway, thick muscular arms folded tight over a bulging stomach. Catherine and Mark Cherry appear sheepishly in the hallway behind him.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Ben mutters under his breath as he turns away.
‘Oi, clean your mouth out. And how many times do you need to be told about driving without a licence? You’re irresponsible, Ben Knot.’
Ben slams the car door and hits the headlights on to full beam, before crunching the gears into reverse. He’s actually a pretty good driver, truth be told. He’s had to be. His dad needs help and there’s no one else to do the shopping and fetch prescriptions.
At the gate at the end of the lane, instead of heading back on to the main road, Ben turns on to the farm track that runs around the edge of the field. Through the open window, he inhales the smell of damp leaves and manure from the field: the dank scent of autumn. The furrows of earth rutted deep by the heavy tractor treads scrape at the loose exhaust pipe of the old Ford Fiesta. Ben flinches. He can hear his dad berating him for not checking his oil or sorting out the clutch. The car bumps and grinds slowly around the back of the farmhouse, towards the vast cowshed.
As the car emerges from behind an enormous compost heap, he can see a figure clinging precariously to the drainpipe and dropping gently on to the flat roof of the outhouse. Annie slides over a wood pile and then crouches down on the ground next to the back door, as a clatter of chopped logs tumble on to the paving. Ben holds his breath. She is all rebel tonight in her leather bomber jacket. His heart pounds in his chest as he watches her daredevil escape from the house. In an instant, she’s free and heading directly towards him across the paddock. Through the drawn curtains of the living room, Ben can hear the jaunty theme tune toOnlyFoolsandHorses. That’ll buy them half an hour.33
The passenger door opens and a breathless Annie leans into the car. ‘Oh! Who’s your friend?’ She giggles. The passenger seat appears to be occupied.
‘Decoy! Hold on … I’ll just pop Nan in the back.’ Ben grabs the shop dummy, shoving her roughly into the back seat. Annie slides herself into the car, cool air passing from her mouth to his as he breathes her in. Talcum powder and strawberries.
‘You’re gonna get me into so much trouble.’ She smiles, as Ben leans in for a kiss. She gently turns her cheek to him, blushing. Ben’s apologetic smile turns into a grin as Annie produces a handful of kitchen roll, containing some of Mrs Maddock’s homemade chocolate brownies.
‘Where to then?’ Ben asks as he bites into the crisp top of the chewy chocolate slice.
‘Where do you think?’ Annie glints at him as she pops a corner of brownie into her own mouth, savouring the sweetness.
Ben’s eyes shine in the dark, fizzing with mischief. ‘At this time of night … no way!’
‘Why not?’ Annie fixes him with a defiant glare.
‘I can’t drive this old rust bucket through, it’s too deep. Remember what happened last time?’ Ben chews his lip, considering her proposal.
‘Let’s get stranded together. You can carry me out.’ Annie pulls down the visor and wipes rogue chocolate crumbs from her lip in the mirror, before turning back with a huge conspiratorial grin on her face. ‘I dare you.’
Ben starts the engine and slowly reverses the car, backing into the circle of the pen-fold, and then heads off in the direction of Water Ford Gate, known to the locals as the Water Splash.
‘You’re a bad influence on me, Annabel Maddock.’34
35
6
SEPTEMBER 2023
The Bashnya Evolyutsiya in Central Moscow was an extraordinary feat of engineering. The fifty-five floors of a twisted double helix, fashioned from glass and steel, won Ben Knot and the IF Group the 2015 NOPRIZ prize for architecture. The fountains, terraces and cafes bustling under a geodesic glass structure, inspired by the spiral geometry of human DNA, was simply breathtaking. But the eye-watering two-billion-dollar price tag, along with all the dirty corporate fingers in the pie, was the beginning of a snowball of broken promises and backroom deals that heralded the beginning of the end for the IF Group. The building remained empty and was a universally acknowledged commercial disaster. It had not only sent the firm into bankruptcy but had triggered an investigation for fraud.
Ben had gone to extreme measures to keep his name out of the picture. Shell companies and various entities had ensured that each new architectural development had no paper trail leading to him personally, but the IF Group was in deep water and sinking fast. Loans were being recalled with immediate effect and some of the lenders were unscrupulous to say the least. Russian money in sheltered tax havens, avoiding the scrutiny of Western governments, had found its way into the IF Group’s accounts and now the investors wanted it back.
Ben stood in the hallway of his home, staring at the model of his ‘Evolution Tower’ in miniature. He’d always known it was far too ambitious, but he’d had something to prove back then, and36hubris had fuelled his ascent to stardom. Ben’s fingers traced the sharp edges of the glass box encasing all his creative dreams. It was everything he’d had to offer; every innovative idea he’d ever had had been ploughed into this venture, and it had failed. Ben was stubborn. He thought he could borrow his way out of this mess, but things were spiralling. The eye-watering numbers had stopped meaning anything to him, they were just jumbled figures on spreadsheets. The only thing left to do was to hold the banks off for as long as possible and try to bury the evidence. Eventually, they would come for the company, then for all his assets, and finally for him. They were out for blood.
Ben was convinced his phone had been hacked and his bank was flagging up fraud alerts every few days now. They’d been phishing. This is what they did: stress-testing the security of his personal accounts. He’d resorted to setting up a private server at home to try to ensure secrecy, but he knew they would get to him in the end. The question was when and how.
Nathan Knot kicked his school shoes off and skidded them across the polished concrete, aiming for the black marble base of Ben’s pride and joy. EarPods in, vacant and unaware, he slung his school bag into the Macassar ebony veneered wall.
‘Hey.’ Ben glared at his son. ‘HEY!’
