Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 by My Enemy v1.0 Be

all of this was going to make anyone a more valuable employee. He struck her as the type of guy who would be utterly insufferable when proven right, and worryingly struck her also as the type of guy who was, insufferably, proven right quite a lot. Parlabane zeroed in on her almost as soon as she and Kathy had arrived, for reasons that it had failed to occur to him were entirely predictable and thus easily anticipated. She and Kathy ran the PR firm that had been - albeit tentatively - representing UML, so Parlabane, being here to rip the piss out of the whole venture, would be tapping them for anything he could construe as a negative comment. One remark from her, even in an understandable moment 49
    of high stress, suggesting she was having anything less than a richly fulfilling time, was worth any number of paragraphs of Parlabane's own vitriol. Forewarned was forearmed, but neither was likely to deter his persistence, so she had already resigned herself to seeing a lot of him over the next couple of days.
    He'd piled into the seat in front of her on the minibus, cheerfully introducing himself and his photographer before pitching straight to the top of his agenda by asking: 'So, exactly how big a waste of time and money do you reckon this kind of carry-on is, on a scale from making your own crisps, to the Millennium Dome?'
    'It's not costing me any money to come here, Mr Parlabane, so that's a moot point, and I think the moment to assess how well your time has been spent has to come after you've spent it.'
    'I meant in general: all of this corporate team-building keech, like It's A Knockout without the funny costumes. All right, fair do's if you get a kick out of playing daft games, but is anybody here stupid enough to think it's somehow gaunny make them work better when they get back to the office?'
    Emily had smiled and looked straight ahead, partly to convey that she wasn't going to be baited, but equally so that she could get a longer look at Donald Baxter, who was driving. Kathy had sat up front next to him, it having been agreed by the pair of them that they should split up and mingle from the off, no matter how tempting it became to circle the Seventh Chime wagons. With so many people milling around, luggage being loaded and questions being asked, she hadn't been able to make more than brief eye contact with Baxter as he shook her hand. His face, though, had seemed unnervingly familiar, not so much a spark of recognition as a jolt of something much stranger. If it didn't sound so ridiculous she'd have said it was as though she'd known him in a previous life. She hadn't heard the name before UML approached Seventh Chime, and his voice hadn't rung any bells on the very rare occasion he'd called, it being mostly Campbell who did the moving and shaking. Her conversations with both had been as brief as they had been scarce, the pair preferring email correspondence in accordance with UML's stated belief in 'the electronic office'. (They had exchanged no snail mail, and come to think of it, Emily wasn't sure if she even knew their address.) However, the moment she clapped eyes on Baxter, she felt not only that she knew him, but that she had known him a long time. Unfortunately, she was at a loss as to where from, or just as frustratingly, why she couldn't remember.
    It was a happy by-product of her confused scrutiny that she was coming off unflustered to the point of aloof towards her would-be interrogator.
    'Given that you might be relying on their goodwill and cooperation over the next few days, Mr Parlabane--'
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    'Please, call me Jack if it would make you more comfortable.'
    'You don't want me to call you what would make me more comfortable. But as I was saying, do you think it's a good idea to be insulting your fellow guests by implying that they couldn't recognise and avoid a waste of their time if they saw it looming ahead of them?'
    'Isn't it more insulting to suggest that vacuous "pro-active" managementspeak, or