CHAPTER – THE BLACK LEDGER

8:07pm – 2 years before London outbreak

Nobody.

That’s who I am. I don’t feign to be anyone or anything else. Nobody is a solace I am most content with, a shadow looming idly by in the crevice of an afterthought. 

You won’t find me on social networks, you won’t find me on vote registers and I’ve taken the liberty of erasing myself from any public record I have the luxury of control over. I’m a ghost and I wear that ethereal badge with a sense of pride.

Per contra to that, I find myself obsessively studying the details of a message I received only earlier this day, a message from an anonymous number informing me that a deposit to the sum of $20,000 had been paid into my account from an unfamiliar US source, hush money without question for the information I had spent the last ten years of my life accumulating, information I was to approach the press with, information up until that point I was certain had not been tracked and no one other than I knew the existence of. The message came with cryptic instructions to first, keep all known information to myself, second, rendezvous with someone by the name of The Hound at a cafe in central London for eight-thirty this evening alone and third, bring my ledger, that it was all in my best interests.

Just like that, I was a somebody, no longer the invisible agent I had shaped myself into, my cover potentially blown by someone coveting the information and the ledger I possessed, someone I knew nothing about and I wasn’t exactly jubilant at the premise.

Never one to cave to bribes or veiled threats, my decision to postpone the meeting with my associate in favour of granting this mysterious uncivil benefactor even so much as a shred of my time, was to feed my own insatiable curiosity. What was the saying about curiosity and cats? Lucrative if satisfaction brought it right back.

I trudged through the snow, taking heed of the intermittent sheets of black ice blanketing segments of the pavements and threatening to bring me to my knees at any moment. 

With the conclusion of the festive season, having gone through the motions of exhausting designated family time, begun the laborious descent of decorations from their month-long perch back into hibernation for another year and all had been said and done to welcome in the new year, the early days of January were a dichotomy of grim darkness, biting chills and post-festivity comedown, like a rehab patient’s withdrawals. 

I pulled my trench coat tighter around me and buried my chin further into my scarf in a fruitless attempt to warm myself up a little more. A little further ahead was the dotted scatter of shop, restaurant and bar lights against a somewhat misty backdrop, with smoking and drinking punters lining the outside of pubs, seemingly oblivious to the cold. Perhaps a cigarette wasn’t such a bad idea, if anything, serving to ease my nerves just a little. 

I dipped my hands into my coat pocket and withdrew the box of Secatas, the only brand of cigarette I ever indulged in. To my dismay, I found only one remaining sitting there forlorn. I had only just bought these yesterday evening, had I really already gone through a box in just a day? If someone else didn’t get me, lung cancer would certainly be my death.

I decided against a cigarette, I couldn’t justify it now, better to save it for whatever the conclusion of this meeting would be and perhaps lay off the death sticks for a while. 

I stopped before the Dices Coffee Shop on King Street, Covent Garden, the one next to the shop selling luxury notebooks, pads, accessories and stationary, just as I had been instructed, holding the door open for a woman and a particularly social accompanying boy, before following them in. The abrupt climate change was an assault on the senses, my sinuses burning up like a flare in an air pocket and a shudder passing right down my spine.

The cafe was particularly busy, the unrelenting chill outside apparently fruitful for business. 

I tapped my shoes on the mat beneath me, freeing them of the clinging snow, whilst I waited for the host to attend to the two before me. Removing my gloves to check the time on my leather strap watch, I was relatively punctual, a rare commodity for me.

No sooner did I raise my head again, I was approached by another host, blonde haired, porcelain skinned and with a warm expression etched upon her face. In her hands she held a digital tablet, presumably for guest lists.

“Hello sir, do you have a reservation or are you just visiting?” She asked, her voice soft, but assertive.

“I have a reservation, it should be under the name, Jaggerman”, I replied simply. It felt peculiar using my real name; for someone as careful such as myself, using my birth name outside of circumstances to which I have no control was sacrilicious. This occasion was not of my volition, our mysterious stranger had taken the courtesy of reserving the table in my name, only piquing my curiosity further. 

She quickly surveyed the names displayed on her screen.

“Ah yes, Mr Jaggerman. Please follow me”, she insisted, proceeding to lead me through a grid of tables and seating and past the till counter where an assortment of pastries were displayed, towards a set of stairs leading to the reservation section of the cafe. This area was substantially less lively, ideal for a conversation of a more classified affair. I couldn’t help but ponder which seat I’d be led to and who should be seated there adjacent in wait for me; alas no one was to be found, presumably I had arrived first.

I was seated in a relatively secluded area by the host and offered a menu, to which I declined, requesting merely a black coffee and placing my black ledger on the table before me. The host had time to leave and a waiter return with my beverage and still no one sat at my table to accompany me. 

After ten more minutes of waiting my patience had been whittled down to nothing and I decided to message the anonymous individual. I received a message back a mere few seconds later brazenly asking if I had brought along the ledger and completely disregarding my first message. I replied that I had and waited for a response. Came a response did, but it wasn’t what I had expected, if I had a great deal to expect; just an instruction to remain facing forward and keep my voice low and then I heard a voice, a female voice from behind me, so hushed, so illusive that I’d be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t intended towards me. 

Naturally I felt compelled to turn around, but I heeded the instructions and remained transfixed.

“Gordon Jaggerman… the shadow broker”.

“Hound?” I replied.

“Have you checked your accounts? I presume you received the money”.

“I did. Why didn’t you say something when I arrived?”

“I needed to deduce if you had come alone”.

“And… if I hadn’t?”

“You brought the ledger”.

“I did”.

“It has all the financial records pertaining to numerous individuals and companies, their stakeholders and patrons, their private affairs and the dirty little secrets they’d rather keep to themselves”.

“Right…”

“Oh I bet there is a goldmine of really juicy scandal in that little black notebook. The power that the one who possesses it will wield is immeasurable and exhilarating. You could quite literally sign the financial, political or even physical death warrant of those within that book. Dillan Cromwell’s offshore accounts and tax evasion, Duchess Reina Heart’s association with war criminals, Maude incorporated using the poor to experiment beauty products on, just to mention a few. I can’t wait to peruse it”.

“Don’t waste my time, why are we here? How do you know so much about me and this ledger? Who have you spoken to?” I interrupted, growing irritable with the facade. She chuckled.

“I make it my business to know the business of others, like you. Nothing gets past me and I use it to… protect my clients. There is profit in leaking information, but protecting it is more so”.

“I can’t be bought and even if I could, that sum wouldn’t be enough for what I have, so what’s to stop me leaving right now and leaking it anyway”.

“You’re a cunning little fox, but unfortunately this time you’ve encountered the hound and like I said, I make it my business to sniff out all the little foxes, so whilst I’m certainly of no threat to you… your son, Adrian I believe his name is”, she had my attention, I suddenly felt more tense than I had been, “he should be with your parents this weekend, no? That’s just the tip of the iceberg and I have some very dangerous clients who wouldn’t think favourably of a front page exposé”.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, facing defeat for the first time in my life.

“You’ve done your homework, I suppose I should consider that a threat. If you have so much leverage already, why pay me off?”

“Think of it as an extended courtesy, it’s not personal, it’s business and I think you should at least get something for all your hard work. I know you could do with the money, let’s just say that the years have been hard on you, a single father, struggling to make ends meet. This’ll be a lifeline, you could use it to pay off those accumulating bills, send your son to university, give him the life you never had”, she patronised.

“And you get to pat yourself on the back for your little act of philanthropy, right?”

“Not quite, I take no pleasure in it. Tell me, what do you gain from sharing the truth?”

“It’s not that I gain anything. The people deserve to know”.

“Cryptophobia, the fear of the cryptic. Everybody has to know everything, you can’t take a walk without people knowing these days”.

“That impenetrable fortress of lies and deceit the people in this ledger are all hunkered behind, watching the little people from their towering spires. It’ll all crumble one day and there’s quite a fall. They never learn and I find myself inundated with the testaments of thousands who can define insanity, but not see the irony of their attribution to it”.

“Have you ever been in a wartorn country, Mr Jaggerman? I have and I once watched proudly as my people led an insurrection against evil, only to face humiliation, persecution and torture by the same people who committed to help us years prior. White phosphorus killed my family and those who instigated it were acquitted and pardoned by their nation. We’re already doomed to keep making the same mistakes and some things are better not known”.

“I don’t want your money, you can have it back. If I’m sworn to silence, it’ll be of my own accord”.

“I don’t do take-backs. Gosh, look at the time. I should be on my way. If by some chance we cross paths again, I do hope it’ll be under more accomodating circumstances”.

“I hope we never meet again”.

“Pass me the ledger and I don’t think I need to warn you how unwise it would be to leak any duplications of the information you might have”.

“Right…” I replied, handing the ledger back to her without even so much as a passing glance and she stood up.

“Do you smell that distinctive burning, Mr Jaggerman? If I’m not mistaken, I do believe we are about to experience the raising of hell and should it come as a surprise, we’re all invited to the barbecue”. 

She departed, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth and only one damn cigarette to quell my frustrations. 

End