Demand Generation

Poor Isaac

Two

“Poor Isaac. He was such a cutie.” — Francesca BoyleIsaac Church sat and looked out across the city.

For once, the faint brown smoggy haze that usually blurred the view was absent — washed away by the overnight rain — and Isaac had a crystal-clear view. Across the wooded hills to the edge of the urban sprawl five miles away, on to the huddle of towers that was the central business district 15 miles further on, and out across the sea to the distant and slightly indistinct horizon.

Isaac settled back in his chair and rested his feet on the balustrade that marked the edge of the balcony. He could feel the morning sun on his face and the earthy smell of moist woodland mixing in his nostrils with the aroma of freshly ground coffee.

It was, without doubt, Isaac’s favourite chill-out spot.

This hour of tranquillity was a treat he granted himself most Saturday mornings. The Café sur la Colline was a short but slightly hilly one mile walk from his home in the leafy semi-rural fringe of the city. The unhurried walk there and back, the time spent meditating over the view, and the extra strong coffee that he had ordered a few moments ago were all part of the ritual.

“Double-shot flat white?” enquired a young female voice from behind him.

“Yep. That’s mine,” he confirmed, turning to smile at the woman bringing his first caffeine fix of the day. She returned his smile and gently clattered the cup and saucer down on the wooden slatted table beside him, slopping a little of the froth down the side of the cup as she did so.

Isaac was pretty certain he hadn’t seen her before. The waiting staff here came and went pretty quickly — the proprietor was, he knew, a hard taskmaster and a lousy payer. He took a second to enjoy the sight of this latest employee. She was dressed unadventurously in old jeans and t-shirt, with the uniform black apron of the establishment over the top. The words “Café sur la Colline” were printed conspicuously across her breasts, an area that Isaac examined with approval as she leant over to retrieve the small stand into which his order number had been inserted.

He put her age at around seventeen or eighteen. Young enough to still be at school, old enough that he could admire her curves with a clear conscience.

Isaac allowed himself to stare unashamedly at the young woman’s denim-clad buttocks as they gyrated their way back inside the café, then turned his attention to his coffee. He tore the end from the sugar tube, upended the contents into the cup, picked it up and returned to his slouched, feet-up position. Taking in the view across the city and stirring his coffee absent-mindedly, he slipped easily into a semi-hypnotic contentedness, and allowed the minutes to drift by.

Definitely his favourite spot.

“You’re admiring the view, I see.”

Isaac recognised the rhythmic Marseillais accent of Raphaël, the proprietor, just as his peripheral vision detected the Frenchman perching himself on the balustrade to his right.

Isaac nodded slowly in agreement, still staring out across the hills towards the city. “You certainly have a pleasant spot here, Raph,” he replied.

The proprietor gave a quiet chuckle. “Ah, no. I meant… the view.” He pointed back to the interior of the café. Isaac swivelled round in his chair to see where Raphaël was pointing. Inside the café, the young waitress could be seen leaning over a table, wiping away the crumbs and coffee rings left behind by an earlier customer.

Isaac laughed and turned to look directly at his host. Raphaël was, Isaac assessed, in his mid fifties. A small man; no more than 5’ 3”. He wore Black Levi 511 jeans and a black t-shirt; both faded to an uneven dark grey by age and too many turns through the laundry. His body was thin and wiry; a physique maintained, Isaac knew, by the combined effects of red wine, Gitanes, and a bottomless well of nervous energy.

“You are an incorrigible old lecher, Raph. She’s far too young for you.”

Raphaël shrugged. “Peut être. This one certainly still has too much of the teenager in her, you know? Talks too much about too little, brain full of air. Too much commérage, not enough work. But still...” he gave an approving gesture back towards the interior of the café, at what Isaac assumed was a view of the undeniably captivating young waitress.

“Maybe you should be looking for a woman your own age, Raph. Someone who isn’t immediately going to realise what a licentious old scoundrel you are.”

The Frenchman laughed again. “Ah, non. Even the older women, they can see what I am. This one,” he pointed back into the café again, “she is not for me, I know. But perhaps you, now that your woman has...” He made a walking motion with his fingers.

Francesca. Yes, she had indeed walked away.

“No, Raph. As pleasant-looking as your latest employee is, she’s not really my type. You know my rule.”

“Yes, yes. I know,” the older man replied. “Older women only. And you are right, of course.” This was, Isaac knew, a topic that the Frenchman would inevitably wish to expound upon at some length. “As with all things in life, confidence in the bedroom comes with practice, yes? A woman without her thousand hours experience of baiser is too clumsy, too nervous, to be a good amoureux; we both understand this. But your Francesca, she was young, no? Too young to have her thousand hours, I think. Too young to teach you very much about l’amour physique.”

It was a valid point, Isaac admitted to himself. Francesca was young, barely out of university. Her approach to s*x had certainly been tinged with all the uncertainties and insecurities of inexperienced youth — eager to please him but not understanding how; tentative and confused in seeking her own pleasure; unsure of her own boundaries, afraid of exploring his. But what she had lacked in competence, she had more than made up for in enthusiasm. Determination, even. Before she had left him, that is.

Isaac turned to look at the café proprietor, and let out a long sigh. “Yes, well. Lesson learned there, eh. But it’s not just about the s*x, you know,” he added; aware, even as he said it, of how defensive it sounded.

The Frenchman looked at him dubiously. “How old are you, Isaac?”

“Twenty eight. Why?”

“And what’s the longest you’ve ever been in a relationship?” Isaac didn’t answer. “You’ve been coming here and telling me about your life long enough that we both know your affaires d'amour last a few weeks at most. When you meet the woman you’re going to fall in love with and want to spend the rest of your life with, you’ll know. But you haven’t met her yet. So for now, admit it: it is all about the sex.”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Says the middle-aged single French lecher.”

“Yes, well,” Raphaël replied, with a faraway look. “Life is complicated, and sometimes even love is not enough. But anyway. What happened with you and Francesca? Did you fight?”

“No, we didn’t fight. She just… stopped. Didn’t want to see me after work, or over the weekend. Wasn’t going to explain. Just wanted me to just leave her alone; goodbye. I can’t make any sense of it.”

“Probably for the best. She was the boss’s daughter, after all. And fathers are very protective of their daughters. It could have been costly for you, no?”

Dick. Francesca’s father. Not Isaac’s boss, exactly; but certainly his biggest and most important client.

“Oh, d**k didn’t seem to mind,” replied Isaac. “I think that, as long as Francesca was happy then he was happy. Well, maybe not happy, exactly — d**k didn’t really do happy. Just unconcerned. He and I got along well enough.”

Raphaël gave another of his Gallic shrugs, signalling the end of his interest in the topic. “No matter. I’m sure that your tolerable looks will lure some other poor woman into your clutches before too long. But enough of les femmes,” he continued. “Tell me, how is business? You are still charging our local enterprises outrageous fees for the use of your modest technical talents?”

“My charges reflect the excellent value that my IT services provide,” replied Isaac in mock indignation. “And besides, they allow me to earn enough to pay the exorbitant prices you charge for your indifferently prepared coffee.”

Raphaël laughed. “Well, if Monsieur would prefer to walk to a different establishment…”

Isaac smiled and tilted his head in mock surrender. The coffee was, they both knew, excellent. And there was no other café even remotely within walking distance of his home.

“Actually, business is pretty good right now,” said Isaac, returning to Raphaël’s question. “Dakin Boyle Pharmaceuticals need to upgrade their core systems, which will keep me lucratively employed for a while. They’ve been putting it off for ages, of course, as all companies do. But now they have no choice; the European Commission has updated all its rules for the pharmaceutical industry, and Europe is one of Dakin Boyle’s biggest markets. Just utter the magic words ‘EudraLex compliance’ and I’ll be able to buy your over-priced coffee for months to come.”

“You’re lucky that old d**k Boyle didn’t mind you seducing his daughter, or he might have given all that work to someone else.”

Isaac shook his head. “I get on all right with d**k. And honestly, they don’t really have a choice. There’s nobody else in this city that understands that Pharmazeutika system of theirs like I do. It’s a bit of a niche product, and I’m the only guy in town who can upgrade it for them in time.”

Raphaël shook his head, then looked up as something inside the café appeared to catch his eye. “Well, some of us need to earn an honest living, and I have another customer.” He pushed himself off the balustrade and walked back inside the café.

Isaac slouched back in his chair and returned to quietly surveying the view across to the city and beyond. He sipped his coffee, and slowly allowed his mind to empty. The minutes passed.

“Double-shot flat white?”

“Eh?” he offered in reply, turning to look over his left shoulder at the teenage waitress, bearing another cup and saucer.

“Yes, perfect. Thank you.” Another female voice, this one from his right. He swivelled round to find that he was now sharing the café balcony with another customer, leaning with her butt perched against the balustrade. The teenager handed her the coffee and left.

“Great minds,” said the newcomer, raising her coffee cup and nodding towards his.

“I guess so,” he replied, at a loss for anything more engaging to say as he struggled to bring his mental focus back to the present.

Isaac took a moment to survey this new presence. She was petite, but not overly so — it was hard to tell from sitting down, but he guessed about five three. Long, straight, blonde hair framed a pretty face that was textured with a light and weathered tan. She had the kind of build that was curvy enough to be sexy but wiry enough to give the impression of a woman who could, Isaac reflected, probably look after herself in a fight. She was wearing a man’s casual shirt that was tight in all the right places and which hung down over jeans that were ripped just above the left knee. Old ripped, not fashion ripped. Working jeans that had seen plenty of hard use. He placed her age at somewhere in the early thirties, maybe five years older than him — no bad thing. Just beyond the reach of his consciousness, the reptilian part of his brain flashed its approval.

This was, Isaac decided, how Avril Lavigne might look if she worked out and got outside more. And she was looking directly at him with a smile that said: no promises, but talk to me and see how you get on.

“Do you come here often?” Isaac couldn’t believe he’d just said that. It was so far beyond lame it wasn’t funny. His subconscious had simply needed to fill the silence, and that was all it had to offer. But she laughed, taking her gaze briefly off him to look down at her coffee and shake her head.

“No. No I don’t.” She resumed her gaze, and now the smile had a hint of mischievousness. “You?”

“I like it here. It’s quiet, the view’s great, the coffee’s drinkable, and I live just down the road. I treat myself to a break up here from time to time.”

The woman balanced her coffee cup on the balcony and held out her hand. “My name’s Bailey,” she said.

He stood, took the offered hand and shook. “Isaac,” he replied. “Isaac Church.” Her hand was small in his, but had a casual strength about it. Not the tight bone-squeezing grip of a guy trying to impress, just the vague sense of a hand controlled by muscles accustomed to hard work.

“So, what do you do for a living, Isaac?” she asked, turning and staring out across the city.

He turned and did the same, vaguely aware that this was a posture more common to two guys chewing the fat than to two strangers starting to flirt. He looked sideways at her, but she continued to look out at the view.

“I have my own business” he said, and was immediately aware of how lame that sounded. He was completely off his game today — this was not a woman who was going to be impressed with clumsy pretensions to eminence. “Actually, the business is just me. I do IT support for a few local companies.”

“Computers, eh? You must do well out of that.” He turned and looked at her again. She was still looking straight ahead. But the mischievous smile was back. She was playing with him.

“It keeps the wolves from the door, most of the time,” he said. “What about you? What keeps you busy, erm…”

Shit! Her name was completely gone from his mind. And he’d gone and made it obvious that he couldn’t remember. What an i***t! “I’m sorry, I’ve completely forgotten your name. You’ll have to remind me, I’m afraid. Very rude of me”

The woman smiled and shrugged in a display of forgiveness. “It’s Bailey,” she replied. “Bailey Troy.” She turned to show him something. It was an identity card. “Detective Inspector Bailey Troy. And I’m afraid that you, Isaac Church, are under arrest for the murder of Francesca Boyle.”