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meetings with visitors and artists when it proved necessary.
    Their colleagues filed out.
    Jake, although nominally Vice-President of Marketing, was effectively in charge of the label. Wignall, the CEO, had based himself on the West Coast, and mostly overlooked the financials and the dynamic between the record company and its multinational owners.
    ‘That mix you selected for the Rumble crew was just right,’ Jake said.
    The band and its management had been fiercely opposed to Noah’s decision to go with that particular version of the song, but he’d won the day following an exhausting series of meetings and arguments. Now, the track was breaking fast with radio and the downloads were increasing exponentially with every passing day. They had a sure-fire hit on their hands.
    ‘It was obvious from the start,’ Noah said. ‘The other takes were predictable. Safe. Sometimes you just have to gamble and try something different. We would have done well enough with the version they preferred, but not great. It was an okay song but it needed the right arrangements and sound.’
    ‘I’m glad you held your ground.’
    Noah smiled. ‘I’m pleased it worked.’
    Jake gave him a high five. His outmoded version of hip. Noah stifled a laugh.
    ‘Listen,’ Jake said.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘This is another mighty notch on your bedpost, you know. I was talking to Wignall last night. He’s over the moon. We’d like to make you a proposal.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Some of the best sounds of the past year or so have been coming out of England. But all the best talent seems to be ending up on other labels. Which is a bummer seeing that we have an office in London that’s already costing us a fortune to run.’
    Noah remained silent, curious to see where this was leading, although he had a premonition and felt a tinge of excitement run through his fingers. He’d never had much contact with their British offshoot, which was run by a flamboyant entrepreneur with a flair for self-publicising, but a patchy track record in discovering new artists or appointing the right people to do so.
    ‘We’d like you to take over. Give the place a kick in the ass. Bring it into the current century. You’d have carte blanche. Interested?’
    The company were about to give the London boss his marching orders this afternoon, coinciding with the office closing in the UK to avoid complications. Lawyers were already in place to do the dirty work and avoid too much of a mess. They wanted Noah to be in place within a week.
    He had no hesitation in accepting.
    It wasn’t just the job and the opportunities it offered. The posting would be open-ended and, naturally, dependent on him making a success of it, but it would provide an escape from New York and the unease he was now in the grip of.
    Noah and April met up at the restaurant.
    She’d been back to their apartment to change first and wore a little black dress and another pair of perilous heels, her long, elegant legs uncovered from mid thigh, taut, agile, a picture of sleek sexual remoteness. He’d stayed on late at the office, already planning the London trip, and came directly from there.
    They ordered.
    The cuisine was inspired by New Orleans. He had the andouillette gumbo, followed by half a dozen oysters and a small lobster salad, and April went for the shrimp remoulade and a duck jambalaya.
    He watched her eating, admiring the delicacy with which she chewed her food, and imagined, remembered those lips so often tasting his cock and the barely there traces of red blush that often spread across her cheeks as she did so, as she realised time and again that she enjoyed it but was also a touch ashamed of her lurid actions. Once he had loved that dichotomy. It had moved him, excited him.
    Coffee came.
    ‘I’m going to London.’
    ‘How long for?’
    ‘For good. I’ve been asked to run the London office of the label.’
    There was a strange look on her face. It was neither excitement nor disappointment.