Chapter 14

The two of them met Mhairi at Green Park Tube Station and had coffee with her at the Ritz of all places. In less than 30 minutes Julian and Andrew had further confirmation, not that they needed any, that they had been incredibly lucky with their lawyer. And do you know why this time? Because Mhairi knew what she did not know and had consulted extensively. She had worked with Mungo Drummond, she was not made a partner until the deals closed, and together they had consulted about software sales, twice with lawyers on the west coast of the USA. Andrew had not realised how thick the sales documents had been, it was like a phone book. One of the innumerable clauses related to further development of AIMS. They were not allowed to create a competing product for five years which still had roughly 18 months to run, but they were allowed to create new products. Per Mhairi’s reading of the contract doing programming for the government in a field unrelated to asset management met this test. She didn’t ask, but had read enough between the lines to know that this was military or intelligence related and was therefore definitely not asset management. Neither Andrew nor Julian had any way of knowing whether this argument would stand up in court but didn’t care. Mhairi had told them it was so and she had never done wrong by them.

“So you are allowed to do it. It is not precluded by the sale. How do you want to do this?”

Julian looked at Andrew.

“We talked last night and think that we can do this. We can design a new program using AIMS as the template but it will be in a new language, probably a new way of storing the data, given the changes and the increase in power of computers in the five years since we originally designed it. The coding is not the issue, it is all the crap to be able to deliver a product to the government. Clearances, security, just working with the government. All that stuff is going to kill us. I think that is where we are going to need all the help, all the guidance. Actually creating something? I am confident that we can do that.”

“Do you want to use the existing company, JSAM?”

Andrew looked back over at Julian. He was shaking his head adamantly.

“No. I want a new company. Andrew only has 10% of JSAM, I want the new company to be 50:50.”

There was 10 minutes of arguing by Andrew about that being too much for him. They ended up at 60:40 which still seemed too high for his limited involvement. And thus C&D Software Solutions was born. C&D? The phrase that Andrew heard for the first time out in Cyprus the previous summer, cloak and dagger, for the listening post up in the Cypriot Hills. There was a similar facility in West Berlin, it dominated the skyline to the south west of the Olympic Stadium. Cloak and Dagger Software would have painted an unnecessary and unwelcome bullseye on them. Thus C&D.

Mhairi went home to her son that night after a long productive day. Both she and Julian signed the Official Secrets Act and would start the paperwork for Top Secret clearance immediately. Once they understood what Andrew had been doing, and what he had demonstrated with AIMS, they saw what needed to be done. Mhairi left them all afternoon while she sat with legal and procurement people going through everything that the company would need to comply with in order to supply software to the government. The difference in five years was marked. Leslie’s suggestion in a meeting was all it took for the government in 1981 to purchase 1,000 copies of AIMS, at the price she suggested. The procurement bureaucracy had caught up to software purchasing and things were different by then. Plus it was going to be classified.

Julian and Andrew sat with several analysts from the Defence Intelligence Staff and refined the requirements for the child of AIMS. It initially was called Spotlight, a name that neither of them came up with. The program was designed to shine light on things trying to stay hidden. It was a DIS analyst that first called it that and the name stuck, until they discovered it had been copyrighted already. It took a very long time for the business side of the company to catch up with the programming. There would need to be a shitload of changes that had to be made to the offices, the computer network, a new alarm system, just lots and lots of details like that. But all that was to come.

As for Andrew? The meetings with Julian lasted until Friday lunchtime, but the summer without end finally ended. Suddenly it was 2.00 on the Friday afternoon and he had nothing to do, no meetings to attend. Andrew was also 600 miles from his assigned workplace. Should he just to return his visitors badge and leave quietly. The Personnel Department must be useful for something, right? He was just what someone didn’t want to have to deal with on a Friday afternoon. It took a call to Brigadier Larkin to resolve the issue but Andrew was finally free of the Ministry of Defence. Three years of summer jobs had come to a close. Graduation and the final week of modelling before the end of July 1987 meant there would not be a fourth. And for once he didn’t agonise over the future. The whole week had been too draining, he would think about it all later.

When he returned to the flat he checked in the fridge. There was nothing for dinner so he phoned the little Italian place round the corner and made a reservation for three. Instead he opened a bottle of red and let it breathe. His first glass was half gone when Jim and Freya returned and they lost no time in getting changed and joining him for a drink.

“There are a million details to be finalised but outcome is as we talked about on Tuesday.”

That summed up three days for Freya and they could move on and leave the matter alone. Before they could leave for the restaurant though the phone rang and it was for Andrew, it was Ara. He had thought of her once or twice during the week but the days were long and Julian had stayed with him Wednesday and Thursday. She was phoning to see if he was back. With Jim and Freya’s okay he invited her to dinner with them. She cabbed over to the restaurant and 30 minutes after the call was sitting with them enjoying a glass of wine. Andrew was back to keeping secrets though.

“I finished up at the Ministry this afternoon. It was hectic at the end and I am glad that it is over. Are you excited about Istanbul?”

“I am, a sort of nervous excited. Time seemed to drag at the start of the summer but all of a sudden it has just flown by. Once I am there and working at the archive I am sure it will be fine. I have a lot I want to try to corroborate in the three months, as well as check original Ottoman source documents.”

Both Freya and Jim were interested.

“What are you looking for?”

“It is papers dealing with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during and after World War 1. People have heard of Lawrence or of the Sykes-Picot Agreement but I want to see what the imperial papers say about that time from the Turkish viewpoint. The whole Levant and Palestinian Mandate are rife with issues going back to that period. I want to see if Balfour had any knowledge of Turkish intentions when he made his famous Declaration. If I can get some source material from the archive then I should be able to complete my dissertation and defend it in the late spring or summer.”

Ara was always happy to talk Middle-Eastern history with anyone that expressed an interest. She turned the attention back to Jim and Freya after she had spoken further about her trip.

“What about the two of you? Did you take time off this summer?”

“Yes we did, rather unimaginatively we took a cottage in Provence. There were more British people there than French. Okay, that is an exaggeration but it felt like it at times. Still it was nice to get away.”

“Do you mind me asking about your job?”

“Not at all. Although I won’t be able to discuss any cases.”

“Oh no I knew that. I was more just interested in the process, what the job is like. You hear about the Law Lords on the TV but I don’t even know how many of you there are.”

“Yes, it is rare for us all to be photographed or filmed together. There are 11 of us and our full title is the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary. We are the highest appeal court in the country and, through the Privy Council, for several Commonwealth countries as well. As with all these things, the cases that are referred or appealed to us are the normally the most complicated or contentious or have the most importance to the country. But they are also obscure or can be. One of the most notable recent cases, settled before I joined the court related to tax and capital gains transactions. Hardly the kind of stuff that makes the nightly news but it had a significant impact on how certain transactions are treated by the Inland Revenue. We also head up enquiries for the Government, often the report or the enquiry will be named after the Law Lord in charge, such as the report on the riots by my colleague Lord Scarman. What else, well I am no longer the ‘new boy’ as there were two further appointments this year, although I am still the youngest. I was only 56 when I was appointed and my two new colleagues are already in their sixties.”

“Do you not have to retire at 65, they will hardly be there for any time.”

“No we only have to retire at 75. Although I don’t think I will stay that long. I can’t see myself serving for 19 years. We will see what happens with Freya’s career.”

Ara had the same quality that both Jim and Freya possessed in abundance, an ease, an ability to make meaningful small talk, if that is not an oxymoron. She had a light touch and an air about her that Andrew knew he didn’t possess himself. It was interesting listen to her chat away with the two of them. As the meal wrapped up he wondered where he was going to stay that night. Freya invited Ara back to the flat for a drink and so the four of them continued the evening there. Andrew had stayed out of the spotlight most of the evening but it was Ara that turned it back on him.

“Do you know what you are doing next week Andrew? Is it the same as usual or is it something different?”

“I don’t know what I will be doing. There was talk about doing something at a stable but I will have to see if it happens. I turn up and do what they tell me. I am not working with anyone I have worked with before though, the models will all be new, not to modelling but to working with me. So that makes me, nervous is too strong, concerned about the chemistry. We’ll see.”

Everyone knew his thoughts on chemistry.

“Are you looking forward to it?”

He thought for a moment.

“I agreed to continue after the first shoot because Heloise and Chiara asked me. A week like this upcoming one when neither of them, or Renee, are there makes it seem more like work.”

Andrew stopped and regrouped his thoughts.

“Modelling is part of university, not in the academic sense of course, but it is something that I am doing while I am at university. So in an odd way I see it as a graduating requirement. When I finish the last week of shoots then I will be done. And more and more I realise that I need to do nothing next summer and reset everything. Career, location, personal life, all of them need time devoted to them. So the frantic pace of the last seven years, eight years come next summer, has to stop, or at least pause. So next week has nothing to do with university or engineering but it feels like it is a lab assignment and it has to be done.”

The three of them didn’t know what to say to that. But they knew what he had said about the pace of his life was true. Mhairi had counseled him two months into his time at Cambridge that the punishing pace was unsustainable. Freya took Jim’s hand and lead him off to their room.

“See you in the morning.”

The door closed and the duality of ‘you’ hung in the air. Ara looked at Andrew.

“Do you think she meant they would see me as well? Us you or just you?”

He shrugged, helpfully.

“I think they mean us both. They didn’t say goodbye, or wish you all the best in Turkey. I think they expect you to be here in the morning, naked in my arms when they bring in my coffee.”

He really did just like getting hit by women.

“Andrew!”

“I am joking. I am always up first. We will go swimming in the morning then you can go home and change. When we get back the illusion of not staying here all night can be maintained even although everyone will know.”

The whole idea of Jim and Freya not being bothered by her staying seemed to bother Ara. After they had both used the bathroom she came to bed but her knickers remained firmly on. And although they kissed and generally felt each other up, that was the extent of it. There was no way she was going to be able to relax so Andrew didn’t force the issue, instead he just held her and the stresses of a long week had him succumbing to sleep in minutes. And in the morning they went swimming, Ara went home and changed and then they returned to the flat for breakfast. It was only when Andrew put on the coffee that Jim wandered through and took a cup back to Freya. A Law Lord in his dressing gown gave Ara a fit of the giggles and distracted her from worrying about the previous evening.

Ara said her goodbyes to Freya and Jim after breakfast and they escaped to the house. It was a day with Ara where Suzanne was on Andrew’s mind a lot. More and more he had two women who occupied his mind, often thinking about one when with the other. His time with both of them was great but with Ara he had to work at it more. Suzanne and Andrew were deeper, they just knew more about each other. But however much time he spent with one or other of them Andrew worried about the future, the end game. He worried about Suzanne leaving him after finding a true dominant person and he worried about Ara leaving him through family pressure.