The Quorum Read Free

building. Tiny had a suite of offices on the top floor which she hadn’t visited since her interview. Mairi met her at the lift and offered her decaf, which she refused. She wondered if the girl disapproved of her and Connor. She had the idea it wasn’t done to dally out of your age range or income bracket. At least, not if you were a woman. All the young middle-age male production staff had permanent lusts for the fresh-from-school female secretaries, runners and receptionists.
    Tiny’s all-glass office was a frozen womb. He sat behind his desk, leaning back. She noticed again the figurine on its stand: a bird-headed, winged woman, throat open in a silent screech. It was an old piece, but not as old as some.
    ‘Know what that is?’ Tiny asked rhetorically, prepared to explain and demonstrate his erudition.
    ‘It’s the Mythwrhn,’ she pre-empted. ‘An ancient bird goddess-demon, probably Ugric. Something between a harpy and an angel.’
    Tiny was astonished. ‘You’re the first person who came in here knowing that...’
    ‘I had an interesting career.’
    ‘You must tell me about it sometime.’
    ‘I must.’
    The last time she’d seen a statuette of the Mythwrhn, she’d been on a nasty case involving black magic and death. It had been one of her few exciting involvements, although the excitement was not something she wished to repeat.
    Without being asked, she took a seat. Apart from Tiny’s puffily upholstered black leather egg-shape, all the chairs in the office were peculiar assemblages of chrome tubing and squeaky rubber. As Tiny made cat’s cradles with his fingers, she was certain he’d fire her.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about you, Sally,’ he said. ‘You’re an asset but I’m not sure how well-placed you are.’
    Her three-month trial wasn’t even up, so she wasn’t on a contract yet. No redundancy payment. At least the dole office was within walking distance of the flat. The poll tax would be a problem, but she should qualify for housing benefit.
    ‘Your experience is unique.’
    Tiny’s confrontational, foot-in-the-door interviews with dodgy characters put him in more danger in any one series of Survival Kit than she had been in all her years of tracing the heirs of intestate decedents, finding lost cats and body-guarding custody case kids. But he was still impressed by a real life private dick. April said the term was sexist and called her a private clit.
    ‘You know about the franchise auction?’
    The independent television franchises, which granted a right to broadcast to the companies that made up the ITV network, were being renegotiated. There was currently much scurrying and scheming in the industry as everyone had to justify their existence or give way to someone else. There was controversy over the system, with criticism of the government decision that franchises be awarded to the highest bidder. The Independent Television Commission, the body with power of life and death over the network, had belatedly instituted a policy of partially assessing bids for quality of service rather than just totting up figures. In the run-up to the auction, battles raged up and down the country, with regional companies assailed by challengers. More money than anyone could believe was being poured into the franchise wars. A worry had been raised that the winners were likely to have spent so much on their bids they’d have nothing left over to spend on the actual programmes.
    ‘Mythwrhn is throwing in its hat,’ Tiny said.
    For an independent production company, no matter how financially solid, to launch a franchise bid on its own would be like Liechtenstein declaring war on Switzerland.
    ‘We’ll be the most visible element of a consortium. Polymer Records have kicked in, and Mausoleum Films.’
    Both were like Mythwrhn, small but successful. Polymer used to be an indie label and now had the corner on the heavier metallurgists, notably the ‘underground’ cult band Loud Shit. Mausoleum