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Once a month, economics and world events allowing, they meet for tea. They use a little table at the back of the Stranger's
Room in the Diogenes Club.
Mycroft states that he does it as part of his role in the Department of Business, Innovation
and Skills. Saito is a major employer in the UK. When one of his departmental staff asked why he didn't meet with the head
of Kobol as regularly, he put them off with a few words about how many more jobs Saito's company controls than Kobol. He makes
sure the woman in question is given a pay rise at the next available opportunity. He approves of observation and diligence
in his staff.
The truth is more complicated.
Saito's company is huge, that is the truth, but so are lots of
others. Saito himself, however, is a most remarkable man. Mycroft has found most businessmen to be singularly one-track-minded,
originally about their business, and then later about whatever their main interest is - see Branson and his endless ballooning.
Saito, on the other hand, is frequently interested in things because he is interested in them. The thing may not have
any immediate application for his company (although, given the size and breadth of it, Mycroft finds it hard to believe there
is anything that can't be used by Saito's company), but he is willing to fund it anyway.
This is not to say that Saito
is a dilettante, he is most remarkably clear-headed. It shows itself in his conversation and his success.
Also, unlike
every other businessman Mycroft has ever met, Saito is a man of taste. He brings his own tea, and is kind enough to share
it with Mycroft. He also brings sweet delicacies from wherever he's most recently been. For all that Mycroft is watching his
figure; it's a delicious treat that he is grateful for.
If these meetings were ever investigated, Mycroft knows that
this couldn't be called lobbying. Sherlock calls it corruption by chocolate, but then again, he always has been small-minded.
Yes, Saito occasionally, and very subtly, hints that his company could do with some help here and there, normally with British
bureaucracy, and Mycroft does help, when it's in the public interest.
In return, Mycroft gets better data for the department,
Saito's own analysts being better resourced than any government agency.
And then, when their business is done, he is
able to talk with someone with a brilliant mind, about any topic. That is Saito's greatest gift to him. It's so rare to come
across someone else with such wide-ranging knowledge.
Yes, and then they talk.
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