Jigsaw Lovers by William Shenton

there’s also another aspect which is interesting. He points my research in the direction he thinks it should go. In the early stages he even moderated his own focus groups.’
    ‘Focus groups?’ she asked.
    ‘You recruit a supposedly random selection of people who read the magazine, sit them around a table, give them free drinks to loosen them up a bit, and then have a group discussion about various aspects of the magazine and the advertisements in it. The advertisers are concealed behind a two-way mirror and observe what goes on. The moderator is meant to chair the discussion impartially, but he was able to lead it subtly in the direction he wanted them to go, to arrive at his predetermined position.’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘Invariably, as far as his superiors and his advertisers are concerned, my independent analysis backs up a position he’s been advocating. Therefore he looks good to them and has gained rapid promotion within the company, and the advertisers go away thinking their budgets are being well spent targeting exactly the type of person they were aiming for. He’s now the youngest member on the board of directors.’
    ‘That’s very clever.’ she sounded impressed.
    ‘Of course everything’s above board.’ He was pleased with this assertion and honestly believed it. It justified his position to think that he was competing on equal terms. ‘I quote for every job along with a number of other competitors. The difference is they put their quotes in before I do, and my friend tells me what price I should come in at. Therefore I’m always competitive and always get the work.’
    ‘You seem to have it very well worked out. It seems foolproof,’ she smiled at him and finished her coffee.
    He sat back smugly, lit a cigarette and asked for the bill.
    As they left the restaurant Diana didn’t notice the man sitting at a side table twist the top of his pen and remove the hearing aid from his ear. The pen was a very sophisticated directional microphone that had picked up and recorded the entire conversation between Diana Johnston and Peter Knight.
    From a copy of Amalgamated Magazines’ annual report James learned that the youngest board member was called Colin Hurd. He was the marketing director, which would tie in with Knight, but to make absolutely certain that this was their man he had some additional checks made on him.
    It turned out that he lived in a house in Surrey, which even someone on twice his income would be hard put to afford. Every year he and his family would spend two weeks skiing in one of the more fashionable Swiss or American resorts, and had enjoyed several beach holidays on Antigua.
    Investigation of Knight’s travel accounts showed that his company had paid for similar trips each year, at the same time as these were taken. Coincidence maybe, but highly unlikely when coupled with the fact that Hurd and Knight had been at university together. James was convinced that this was the bribe taker.
    Due to the ineptness and lack of understanding of his managers Ian Hamilton was able to accomplish the work that was delegated to him for a week, in two, sometimes one day. This left him with a considerable amount of spare time which he used to good effect learning other aspects of programming, in particular aspects associated with the design and production of computer games software.
    One morning he was engrossed in rendering a three-dimensional room on his screen, when the telephone rang.
    ‘Is that Ian Hamilton?’ a voice he didn’t recognise asked.
    ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘This is Michael Winder. I’m the manager who handles your personal bank account,’ he started.
    ‘I see. Is there a problem?’ Hamilton knew he had been a little overdrawn recently but his salary should have been paid in by now.
    ‘No, not at all. The opposite in fact.’ he continued. ‘We’ve been looking through our accounts recently and we see you only have a basic cheque account.’
    ‘Yes, that’s right.