One Last Lesson by Iain Cameron

nothing much happens from this point on.’ His hand moved towards the mouse.
    ‘No, wait a sec. If Ferris was involved in Sarah’s abduction, we should see him coming out of the club a few minutes later, wouldn’t you think?’
    ‘ Bloody Norah! I didn’t think of that.’
    They watched the screen for a full fifteen minutes but no one fitting Ferris’s description left or entered the club and so they decided to spool forward to two-thirty, when the club closed, and from that point on left the DVD running. They watched in amusement as a steady stream of drunk and boisterous youngsters spilled out onto West Street, and no little amazement at the number of people it disgorged, as neither of them had any idea how many the seemingly vast club could hold.
    In fifteen minutes the flood became a trickle and then nothing at all for at least three minutes, until the appearance of a ragbag of sorry individuals whose bedraggled posture and clothes made Henderson think they were found sleeping in the toilets. Their progress was being carefully monitored by a small posse of bouncers who looked alert and immaculate in dark dinner suits, in stark contrast to the scruffy and dishevelled appearance of the stragglers. Standing at the back was the tall, broad and unmistakable figure of Mike Ferris.

THIRTEEN
     
     
     
    It was the end of a hell of a week for Jon Lehman and now he needed a drink. Sober since his meeting with Alan Stark two days ago, he was in the mood for a real blowout. To live without the solace of a drink and the stimulating company of whoever was in the bar was bad enough, but after enduring a seminar with a bunch of dullards who were instructed to write an essay on, ‘Quantifying the Benefits of Takeovers,’ and to his annoyance, most couldn’t think of nine when at least fifteen were contained in the recommended texts, the booze now served a medicinal purpose.
    True to Stark’s word and his reputation as a fixer, he smoothed things over with their business associates and life went on much as it did before. Sarah’s pictures were no longer appearing on the website and all traces of the work she did was expunged from the records, and as far as the business was concerned, she had never existed. The same could not be said for the feelings that lurked at the back of his head like a hungry wolf, ready to pounce on his wounded conscience when he least expected it.
    The enforced sobriety did however have some beneficial eff ects as for a change, he spent some time working on the website’s financials, a job he was often loathe to do as working with numbers reminded him of what he did in his day job.
    With the latest business report from DeeZee in his possession, it didn’t take long to confirm the month-on-month growth in subscribers was a touch over thirty per cent and if that pace continued, each of the three equal partners would trouser a pay-packet of one hundred grand by the end of the month. Now that was something worth celebrating.
    He walked into the Ringmer Bar, a place frequented both by students and staff and began to look round for a friendly face. This was not an essential requirement as he was perfectly happy drinking alone but it usually made for a more satisfying evening as it was easier to eye up women in the company of others, than standing forlornly at the bar and looking to the rest of the world like a loser.
    After picking up his order, a pint of lager with a whisky chaser, single if he was taking it easy, double if he was celebrating, he spotted a table with a smattering of psychology and politics lecturers and walked over to join them. If they were members of his own faculty, he would ha ve avoided them like the plague as their talk would be about finance, accountancy and economics, the stuff he did all day and trying hard to forget, and invariably, once emboldened by drink, they would start to snipe at what they regarded as his facile publishing career.
    The ‘oligists,’ as he liked to call