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“Me?” he asks with surprise.
“Yes, Mack. You’re… intimidating, even without the suit.”
“I don’t mean to be. I genuinely asked you here to let you explain yourself. Come on, eat something for me. The potatoes are fantastic.”
I spear one and nibble at it. It’s very tasty, and I realize Mack’s probably right, and I need some food in my stomach. I help myself to another.
“So,” he says, “your dad went to see a specialist?”
“Yes. He did an exam.” I take a deep breath. “And he told him he had prostate cancer.”
His brow furrows. “I’m so sorry.”
I stab the egg, letting the yolk flow out over the mushrooms, and clear my throat. “There were tests, and a couple of scans. His oncologist told him that the drug that would be best for him isn’t funded in New Zealand, but there’s a cost-share program where the manufacturer helps pay toward the cost of the drugs.”
I eat another potato, and then just like that, hunger kicks in, and my stomach rumbles. I pick up my knife, cut up one of the sausages, and tuck in properly.
“The drug is given by infusion every three weeks,” I continue. “He was told it would cost around fifty thousand dollars, but a Ministry of Health directive prohibits the administration of privately funded drugs in a public hospital. So he said we would have to factor in the cost of administering it in a private clinic, which could be another hundred thousand dollars.”
His eyebrows rise. It’s a lot of money even by his standards.
“Yeah,” I continue. “I have student loans, the same as any other graduate, and no savings—I’m working two jobs just to pay my rent. My brother’s the same—he left university a year ago, but he’s struggled to get a job. He’s helping out at a local builder’s and barely making minimum wage. My dad’s a caretaker at a primary school, and Mum works at the supermarket. So there’s no way we could afford that kind of money.”
I was so angry at the time, frustrated and furious. But it feels as if I’ve used up all my emotion. Now, my words are flat and dull.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mack says.
“We decided we weren’t just going to give up. Of all the people in the world, I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more than Dad.” I speak fiercely. “He works so hard, and in his spare time he helps out at the local Hospice, and the SPCA shop. Anything he’s ever had, he’s shared or given it away. He made sure we kids never wanted for anything, even though they’ve never had any money.”
I stop and have a big mouthful of coffee, then take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They had a small life insurance policy that is going to pay for some of it. We’ve applied for a couple of grants, one of them quite big, and we’re still waiting to hear back on those. They’ve sold their car, and they can take a three-month mortgage holiday. I set up a GoFundMe account with Dan and Kate—my brother and sister. Friends and family have been amazing. Dan and I have both done sponsored walks, and Carol and Hana and a couple of our other friends came too, so we’ve raised some. But we still need more.”
“That must be hard,” he says.
“It is. And that’s why, when the opportunity arose to make some money, I grabbed it with both hands.” I stop eating and have a couple of mouthfuls of coffee. I thought that was the difficult bit, but this is even harder. “Dan came to see me and said he’s spoken to a friend. Eventually I discovered it wasn’t a friend, it was someone who sold him weed, and… I’m not stupid… probably other drugs. He’d told this ‘friend’ that he needed money, and the friend told him he’d be prepared to make a generous donation in exchange for a simple task. It involved infiltrating a business and photographing important documents.”
I don’t look at Mack. Instead, I concentrate on the coffee in the mug. “Dan told me it wasn’t something he could do—he didn’t have the kind of skills that would gain him access to the office. But I did, and he asked me to do it. At first, I was disgusted with him, and I said no and walked out. But that day, Dad’s pain was particularly bad, and he kept saying he wished it was all over so he wouldn’t be a burden to us. I was so upset… and in the end I thought why not? I wasn’t being asked to kill anyone. I wasn’t hurting aperson. Surely it wouldn’t matter what I did to a big corporation.”
He shifts in his chair. I don’t look up at him.
“So I agreed to do it. He contacted me by phone. He called himself Socrates. I think it was a codename.” I glance up then. He doesn’t smile, and I look back down. “He gave me your name and the name of your company. He said he’d organize it so I would be able to clean in your office, and said I was to photograph anything I could lay my hands on.”
I let out a long sigh. “I couldn’t find anything, because it was all locked away. And I left thinking that was it. I cried all the way home, disappointed and relieved in equal measure. I’d seen you walking through and suddenly you weren’t a faceless executive. Dodie told me you were a self-made man and that you’d built the business up yourself. I felt terrible. When you called me in the next day, I was terrified you’d spotted what I’d done on camera or something. And then you asked me out.”
I look up at him, wishing I could make him understand how I feel. “I was so excited at the thought of going out with you,” I whisper. “And then I went out to the car, and he rang me, and he said it was the perfect opportunity to spy on you again that night. He said I had to do my best to get you to take me back to your suite and see if you’d left any paperwork there. He said if I didn’t, he’d call you and tell you what I’d done in your office the night before.”
“He blackmailed you?”
“Yes.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “So surely it went according to plan? We were having sex. Why didn’t you just wait for me to fall asleep, then take the photos? You don’t know me, not really. You knew I asked you there for sex, so I’d have gotten what I wanted. Wouldn’t it have served me right?”
He’s being harsh on himself, which surprises me and touches me in equal measure.
“Can’t you guess why?” I ask. His puzzled look stays, though, and I give a sad smile. “Because I liked you, Mack. I couldn’t go through with it.”
He blinks. Then tips his head to the side. “Liked?”
My stomach flips, but I keep my cool. “Like.”
