He had watched Hunter and Julian escalate a simple lunch into an operatic duet on more occasions than he could count.They’d fed each other punchlines. They had, on one memorable afternoon in a pub in Clapham, re-enacted a scene from Tosca for a table of stag-do lads who had given them a standing ovation.
The thought of Hunter and Vidal sharing a bread basket brought a pulse of tension to the hinge of his jaw.
“Beauchamp. You are grinding your teeth again. I can hear it from here, and the cab driver can hear it from the front, and it is going to wear your molars down to stumps before you are forty.”
“I’m not grinding my teeth, sir.”
“You are grinding them now with some enthusiasm. Whatever you are thinking about, stop.”
He was spared the obligation of a reply by the cab pulling up outside the restaurant, a narrow Edwardian frontage with green tiles above the windows andFISCHER’Spainted across the glass in gold. Beauchamp paid the driver, gathered the carrier by its handle, and held the door for Vidal.
Hunter was on his feet before they had even cleared the vestibule.
“My boy! My darling boy, there you are, come here, comehere.”
Beauchamp handed the carrier to Vidal without looking at him and submitted to being embraced by his father across the brass rail that separated the entrance from the dining room. Hunter hugged him, one hand on the back of Beauchamp’s head, the other flat between his shoulder blades. His father made a soft sound of contentment against his ear, and swept him into a rocking motion that lasted much longer than Beauchamp was comfortable with as a man in his late thirties.
When Beauchamp was released he took a half-step back and saw, for the first time, that his father’s table was a four-top.
A man in a lambswool sweater-vest was sitting in the chair opposite Hunter’s. He had a neatly trimmed beard, wire-framedglasses, and a cup of tea held in both hands at chest height. Beauchamp had never met this man before, but he looked like a Trevor who worked in cybersecurity.
“Rix.” Hunter was beaming. He did not seem to have registered Vidal at all. “Rix, my darling, this is Trevor. Trevor, this is my son Hendrix.”
The bad feeling that had been assembling itself in Beauchamp’s stomach all morning completed its construction.
“Mr Morrow.” Vidal had set the carrier down between his ankles and was already extending a hand across the table. “What a great pleasure this is. I am Vidal, I am Beauchamp’s principal, we spoke on the telephone. And Trevor, my dear, I am so pleased to meet you, Beauchamp has told menothingabout you, which is exactly the sort of discretion one wants from a potential partner, is it not?”
Trevor, who had risen from his seat at the sight of Beauchamp and hadn’t quite decided what to do with the hand holding the teacup, transferred the cup to his left hand and shook with his right. “It’s — yes. Hello.”
“Sit, sit, we are all here now, sit down.” Vidal pulled out the chair beside Trevor’s and installed himself there before Beauchamp had worked out the seating plan. This put Beauchamp opposite Vidal and next to his father. Vidal turned the full brightness of his attention on Trevor and began.
“Now. Trevor. I must knoweverything. Tell me what you do, precisely. I want the whole picture of you as a man withpassions.”
Trevor set his teacup down on the saucer, and didn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes as he spoke. “I do penetration testing, mostly.”
“Penetration testing.” Vidal pressed a hand to his heart. “Trevor, this sounds most alluring. Explain to me what it involves, and do not leave anything out.”
Beauchamp picked up his menu. He kept it between himself and the rest of the table and pretended to read about the schnitzel. Beside him, Hunter was signalling the waiter for another Guinness.
Trevor had begun to carefully answer Vidal’s question, clearly used to being asked what he did and then watching the asker’s eyes glaze over. He explained what penetration testing was. He used the phrasesocial engineering, then he mentioned a client in the banking sector whose name he was not at liberty to disclose.
Vidal listened. He leaned in slightly, nodded at the right moments, and produced, at one point, a gratifiedahthat suggested Trevor had just explained something genuinely revelatory about the nature of computing. By the time Trevor had finished his summary of a recent engagement involving a phishing simulation at a regional building society, he had unbent from his braced upright posture and was gesturing with one hand.
“And you live in Reading, yes?” Vidal asked. “I have never been. Tell me about it. Not the guidebook version, Trevor, therealversion. What is it like to live there? Where do you drink? Where do you buy your bread?”
“Reading’s all right, really. It’s got good rail connections. I can be at Paddington in twenty-seven minutes if there’s nothing on the line.”
“Twenty-seven minutes!” Vidal sat back in his chair. “This is remarkable. So you can be in London for dinner with no difficulty at all.”
“In theory.”
“Trevor, you are a well of wonderful information, and I intend to lower a bucket into every inch of you before pudding.”
Hunter set his pint glass down with an audible clunk against the cloth. He was no longer beaming, like he had been throughthe introductions, and through the first thirty seconds of Vidal’s love bombing of Trevor.
The waiter arrived. Vidal ordered for himself and for Trevor in the same breath; the wiener schnitzel for himself, the kalbsleber for Trevor on the grounds that it was the house speciality and one could not come to Fischer’s and order the salad. Trevor, who had clearly intended to order the salad, accepted the liver with dazed acquiescence.
Vidal turned back to Trevor before the waiter had left the table. “Your shirt, Trevor. I must tell you. I noticed it the moment you stood up, and I have been waiting for a natural pause in the conversation to remark upon it, because I did not want to interrupt you when you were explaining the phishing simulation so thoroughly. It is a very good shirt. The collar sitsbeautifully.”
