Francisco. Since then, there hasn’t been any trouble in the town, and that client has renewed its contract with us – and expanded it to four other locations. That’s—’
Fourpetal pauses the video, leaving Hitchner standing there with his mouth open and his eyes closed. ‘The client he’s talking about there is an Australian private military company called Cantabrian who were working for a French oil firm in the Niger Delta – apparently that would have been common knowledge for everyone in the audience. We know from the fateful email that Cantabrian is the company that this chap Bezant ran until he was poached by Lacebark. And it was while he was still at Cantabrian that they took out their big contract with ImPressure•. If Bezant is such an admirer of ImPressure•’s product, there seems to be a good chance that he encouraged Lacebark to employ them too. Or even if he didn’t, he must at least have recalled the measures they prescribed down in Africa.’
‘You think Lacebark have bought out Myth FM,’ says Raf.
‘They probably approached Theo, and Theo said no, and they were worried he’d tell people about them,’ says Isaac. ‘So that’s why they took him away.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Dickson’s running the place now and he’ll do anything for a bit of cash. Theo built that station from nothing. I’ve been playing on Myth for five years. I can’t fucking believe this could happen.’
Like the Knights of Malta, Raf thinks, broadcasting is a way of having more square feet of embassies than you have square feet of sovereign territory. ‘Those new DJs doing the Burmese programme . . .’
‘During the Second World War, our Political Warfare Executive started a German-language jazz station,’ says Fourpetal. ‘The Germans knew it was all propaganda but they enjoyed the programming so much they couldn’t help listening anyway.’
‘Lacebark are trying to worm their way into the Burmese immigrant community in London.’
‘And we have no idea why.’
‘Maybe it’s all about Cherish. She was born in Gandayaw. Her father was a Lacebark executive.’
‘There’s no reason to assume your new girlfriend is the only Burmese immigrant in London with a connection to Lacebark. And even if she is, how can she possibly be “ten times more important than the Xujiabang deal”?’
‘She’s ten times more important to Raf!’ says Isaac, loyally.
‘Yes, well.’
After Fourpetal leaves, Isaac opens two cans of lager. ‘We’ll find her,’ he says to Raf. ‘We will. Theo, too.’
‘I’m really worried they might have got hurt already.’
‘Do you want a bit of DMBDB? It’ll make you feel better.’
‘What’s DMB—?’
‘DMBDB. It’s a new dissociative. I got a gram from Barky yesterday. Supposed to be nice and mild. Although no drug has ever succeeded with a five-letter abbreviation. It’ll need surgery on the name.’
‘Isaac, seriously, where do you and Barky even hear about all this shit?’
‘Mostly on Lotophage.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I assumed you were already on it.’
Isaac passes him the laptop, Raf starts browsing, and before he knows it, more than an hour has passed. Lotophage, it turns out, is a messageboard for exceptionally dedicated and adventurous drug abusers to exchange advice and compare experiences. It’s all in English but it’s registered in Russia and hosted in the Netherlands; in almost every post he sees references to AFOAF or SWIM, and he wonders if those might be drugs themselves until he works out that they stand for ‘a friend of a friend’ and ‘someone who isn’t me’, which is the ragged legal cloak you’re supposed to wear if you’re telling stories about taking controlled substances.
And these people really know their chemistry. A random post about DMBDB argues that it’s not as good as MDPV ‘because the heterocyclic ring doesn’t allow the tertiary amine to be metabolised into a secondary amine, as it does in
Fourpetal pauses the video, leaving Hitchner standing there with his mouth open and his eyes closed. ‘The client he’s talking about there is an Australian private military company called Cantabrian who were working for a French oil firm in the Niger Delta – apparently that would have been common knowledge for everyone in the audience. We know from the fateful email that Cantabrian is the company that this chap Bezant ran until he was poached by Lacebark. And it was while he was still at Cantabrian that they took out their big contract with ImPressure•. If Bezant is such an admirer of ImPressure•’s product, there seems to be a good chance that he encouraged Lacebark to employ them too. Or even if he didn’t, he must at least have recalled the measures they prescribed down in Africa.’
‘You think Lacebark have bought out Myth FM,’ says Raf.
‘They probably approached Theo, and Theo said no, and they were worried he’d tell people about them,’ says Isaac. ‘So that’s why they took him away.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Dickson’s running the place now and he’ll do anything for a bit of cash. Theo built that station from nothing. I’ve been playing on Myth for five years. I can’t fucking believe this could happen.’
Like the Knights of Malta, Raf thinks, broadcasting is a way of having more square feet of embassies than you have square feet of sovereign territory. ‘Those new DJs doing the Burmese programme . . .’
‘During the Second World War, our Political Warfare Executive started a German-language jazz station,’ says Fourpetal. ‘The Germans knew it was all propaganda but they enjoyed the programming so much they couldn’t help listening anyway.’
‘Lacebark are trying to worm their way into the Burmese immigrant community in London.’
‘And we have no idea why.’
‘Maybe it’s all about Cherish. She was born in Gandayaw. Her father was a Lacebark executive.’
‘There’s no reason to assume your new girlfriend is the only Burmese immigrant in London with a connection to Lacebark. And even if she is, how can she possibly be “ten times more important than the Xujiabang deal”?’
‘She’s ten times more important to Raf!’ says Isaac, loyally.
‘Yes, well.’
After Fourpetal leaves, Isaac opens two cans of lager. ‘We’ll find her,’ he says to Raf. ‘We will. Theo, too.’
‘I’m really worried they might have got hurt already.’
‘Do you want a bit of DMBDB? It’ll make you feel better.’
‘What’s DMB—?’
‘DMBDB. It’s a new dissociative. I got a gram from Barky yesterday. Supposed to be nice and mild. Although no drug has ever succeeded with a five-letter abbreviation. It’ll need surgery on the name.’
‘Isaac, seriously, where do you and Barky even hear about all this shit?’
‘Mostly on Lotophage.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I assumed you were already on it.’
Isaac passes him the laptop, Raf starts browsing, and before he knows it, more than an hour has passed. Lotophage, it turns out, is a messageboard for exceptionally dedicated and adventurous drug abusers to exchange advice and compare experiences. It’s all in English but it’s registered in Russia and hosted in the Netherlands; in almost every post he sees references to AFOAF or SWIM, and he wonders if those might be drugs themselves until he works out that they stand for ‘a friend of a friend’ and ‘someone who isn’t me’, which is the ragged legal cloak you’re supposed to wear if you’re telling stories about taking controlled substances.
And these people really know their chemistry. A random post about DMBDB argues that it’s not as good as MDPV ‘because the heterocyclic ring doesn’t allow the tertiary amine to be metabolised into a secondary amine, as it does in
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