Free Seven Daze by Charlie Wade

said Ascot or Newbury. ONS workers didn’t know random greyhound tracks. Unless of course they had gambling problems.
    She nodded. The hair slipped again. “There’s a limit to what I can say. As I’m sure you know, insider trading’s illegal. Obviously, we don’t do anything like that. There’s regulations and well... It’s just obvious. It stands out a mile.”
    Jim nodded. She hadn’t answered his question, but she’d taken the conversation to a different, much more interesting area. The next question he wanted to ask was, can you turn a hundred quid into ten grand in a week. He thought he knew what the answer would be.
    “Sometimes,” she continued, “with takeovers, the sheer amount of money invested will push up the price with people speculating, and it just becomes common knowledge. It’s almost a free-for-all.”
    She was building up to something but he hadn’t a clue what.
    “I mean, if people found out what companies the Emirates were thinking of buying, they could earn themselves a pretty penny.” Her voice now almost a whisper.
    Jim was unable to help the smile growing on his face. “When does the deal happen?”
    “About four weeks until it goes public.”
    His face fell further than a bank share in a crash. In six days he’d be at the bottom of the Thames, his concrete shoes making him look like a Subbuteo-style, life-sized ornament. Another exit had slammed shut.
    Aware of just how much his face had dropped, he shovelled the last piece of cold pasta in his mouth. Charlotte made a brief excuse and went to powder her nose. Jim assumed she was using the toilet rather than snorting a line of coke like many of the other diners probably were. Noticing she’d left her coat and laptop on her chair, thoughts ran through his head.
    Laptop, eighty quid, coat twenty. Actually, the contents of the laptop could literally be worth millions in the right hands. Millions. No, he wasn’t going to do it. Charlotte had never hurt a fly. He couldn’t do it.
    Returning, she sat down and the conversation moved from finance and deals to Friday afternoons and the lack of work they produced. Jim explained that every day was quiet in the world of National Statistics, but Friday was just a dearth of wanting to go home. Charlotte, on the other hand, had a meeting at four and a few pieces of paperwork to catch up on in the office.
    They sipped their after-dinner coffee in contented half silence. They’d both declined dessert, Charlotte for her figure and Jim in case they were going fifty-fifty on the bill. Carefully and not too subtly, he engineered the conversation on a roundabout route from Friday afternoon to Saturday night.
    “So, what are you doing tomorrow night?” he said.
    Her eyes lit then dulled. The loose piece of hair didn’t move. She appeared to have welded it to her scalp during her toilet break. “Nothing.”
    Trying to word his next sentence to sound non-corny was hard. He eventually settled on, “Really? Someone like you shouldn’t spend Saturday night alone.”
    She grinned slightly, encouraging him further.
    “How about we go out?” he said, “A film or show or something?” He hoped she wouldn’t pick a show; they were expensive.
    She nodded her head. “Yeah. I’d like that. Yeah.”
    “Okay.” He smiled. Fighting back the temptation to shout “Yes”, he instead hid his face behind his cup and sipped it.
    “I’d better think about getting back.” Her heart didn’t seem in it, which increased Jim’s smile.
    Jim took a look at his own watch. Two hours had flown by. Surely ONS workers weren’t allowed two hour lunches. It’d be nearer three given the travel to and from his supposed office. Whether she’d thought anything was odd, she hadn’t said.
    “Can I, umm,” she caught the waiter’s attention and mouthed the words, “have the bill please?”
    Jim made an attempt to go halves, but she insisted lunch was her idea, and besides, it was on expenses. He tried again to go