‘What ho, old chap.’ Bertie’s voice sounded through the intercom and Nick sighed. ‘Bit of totty waiting out here for you. Shall I send her in?’ The reception area was separate to the outer office that Bertie sat in, but Nick was pretty sure you could hear most of what Bertie said from there; his voice did tend to carry. Nick was not entirely sure how Lila would react to being called a ‘bit of totty’, and seeing as her disposition was prickly at the best of times he was not eager to find out.
‘One minute, Bertie,’ he said into the intercom, and started tidying his papers.
‘Good for you, Flopsy.’ Bertie’s cheerful voice sounded again and Nick gritted his teeth at Bertie’s use of his old nickname (they had had words about using that name in the office, but Bertie was oblivious to how much it wound Nick up). ‘Keep the fillies waiting, why not? Got to say I like your taste; good set of nashers on her, lovely rear-end, looks like a goer too.’ Referring to females as ‘fillies’ was by no means out of the ordinary for Bertie; nor was describing their attributes much as if they were actual horses. Clearly they would have to go through the rules of the office again.
Why Nick had agreed to hire his cousin as his PA was beyond him. Bertie was a good bloke; they had grown up next door to each other and were in the same year at boarding school together. He was hilarious but totally clueless, hence his inability to get and keep a job or in fact a girlfriend for any length of time. The Family had succeeded in employing enough guilt and emotional manipulation to get Nick to agree to help train Bertie whilst Nick’s real PA was off on maternity leave. So far Bertie had succeeded in pissing off the majority of Nick’s suppliers and employees with his bumbling incompetence, unwitting sexism and general ridiculousness.
Nick paused in the process of tidying his papers, braced both hands on his desk in front of him and let his head fall once onto the wooden surface.
‘Nick, darling, what are you doing?’ Lila’s voice caused his head to come up and he focused on her. She was, as always, immaculate. He knew that in the male-dominated world of management consultancy she used her appearance as a kind of weapon in order to get the job done with the minimum of fuss: when Lila came into a meeting she tended to command most of the attention and invariably managed to swing things her way. ‘I see you’re still lumbered with Tim-nice-but-dim out there,’ she said, flicking her long dark hair over one shoulder and gliding elegantly down into the seat in front of his desk.
Nick sighed. ‘Just ignore him, Li,’ he said as he pushed up from his chair. ‘Let’s go.’ It had been a long day and he had a sudden overwhelming desire to just get out of the bloody office. Worryingly, he couldn’t even remember a time when he had left before nightfall, and he needed a break. The meeting with the Russians was frustrating to say the least. It was clear that the bulk of the conversation was not being translated, and overall he had felt out of control of the whole thing. Nick did not relish being out of control in any area of his life. In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he had been undermined to that degree. By the end of the two hours he had been sorely tempted to chuck Lucinda out of the office window. Ed, being Ed, had been terrified in general and had not fielded the scientific questions directed at him very well, even though Nick did notice that Lucinda softened her tone when talking to him. At one point she had smiled encouragingly at him, and it was the first one Nick’d ever seen that actually reached her eyes. The fact that she’d seen fit to award Ed with this for some reason made Nick even more furious, and by the end of the meeting he’d snapped a pencil clean in half, such was his frustration.
He took Lila by the arm and gently but firmly steered her out of the office, past an open-mouthed Bertie and into the entryway, only stopping at the lift doors.
‘Well,’ breathed Lila through a small smile, ‘I don’t know what’s got your knickers in such a twist but I’m going to say I like it.’ Nick wasn’t surprised, they’d been friends/casual lovers on and off for the last few months; he knew what she liked. He transferred his hand to the base of Lila’s spine as the lift doors opened and walked them both through. As they were turning to face the doors and Nick was breathing a sigh of relief that at least he would be spared Lucinda for the rest of the day, he flinched.
‘Hi,’ chirped a smiling-but-not-smiling Lucinda, giving both Nick and Lila a cheery finger wave before she leaned across them and pressed the ground-floor button. Nick stared at her. He knew he was an observant man and there was nothing wrong with his hearing, so why hadn’t he heard her approach or even alight into the lift? He shook his head, took his hand off Lila and shoved both of them into his pockets, determined to ignore Lucy and just bloody –
‘I’m Lucinda,’ he heard her say, and looked over to find that she had her hand out for Lila to shake. Lila flicked Nick a bemused look before taking Lucinda’s hand.
‘Lila,’ she replied after the briefest handshake possible.
‘Lucinda, why are you leaving the office now?’ Nick ground out, still staring straight ahead.
‘But this is when I finish,’ she told him. ‘It’s past five after all.’
‘But –’
‘Here we are,’ Lucinda interrupted, then strode out into the ground floor entryway with Nick and Lila in her wake. When they were all out on the street Lucinda seemed to develop the sudden need to adjust the strap on her shoe and dropped to a squat to do this. By the time she’d straightened up, Nick and Lila were beside her on the pavement. Nick always parked in his reserved space a few yards down from the office on the right; this meant he invariably had to endure Lucinda’s chatter right up to the door of his car. In the process of turning to his right he stopped mid-stride.
Right up to his door.
Every day for the last month that was exactly what Lucinda had done. The question was, why?
‘Let’s get the tube into town, Li, and go out to eat. Traffic’ll be murder now at this time,’ he said, spinning on his heel and guiding Lila in the direction of the station, which was left out of his office. ‘See you next week, Lucinda,’ he flung at her over his shoulder, not looking back to see her expression, and for some reason feeling like he’d won a sort of small victory.
*****
Goodie sighed as she pulled out her mobile. When she had dialled the number she secured her hands-free earpiece and started after Nick and Lila.
‘He knows,’ she said into the earpiece whilst tying up her hair into a baseball cap (she couldn’t wait to get rid of those fucking hair extensions – why women paid for this shit she had no idea) and tugging off her heels. ‘I don’t know how, but he does. I told you that this would be ridiculous.’ She tossed her heels and the pink jacket she was wearing into a bin and pulled some trainers out of her bag. Without the coat her outfit was almost completely black, and with her baseball cap pulled down over her eyes she was pretty much unrecognizable as Chirpy Office Receptionist. Of all the roles Goodie had had to play (and some of those roles were a lot more horrifying), she thought that the last month had to have been the most taxing. Chirpy was not something that came naturally to Goodie. Her face had ached after a day of smiling – years of disuse had no doubt atrophied the facial muscles required; and if she had to make one more inane remark to one more brainless dimwit she would scream. She moved silently through the crowd, never losing sight of her target.
‘Maybe we cut this fucking charade now, yes?’ she bit out, her light Russian accent filtering through her words. The person on the other end of the line knew who she was: that was the main reason he had recruited her.
She shook her head as she saw Nick was going to take a short cut. What a moron. The alleyway had no street lighting and was almost completely deserted. She rolled her eyes and turned down into it, reaching into the back of her trousers and letting her hand close around the cold steel.
*****
‘What the –?’ Nick’s shoulder was yanked backwards and he crashed against the wall at the side of the alleyway. Before he could even register who or what was in front of him a fist slammed into his face and his head cracked back onto the brick. Reacting on instinct, he swung out and felt his fist connect with a sickening crunch of facial bones. He blinked to see the large man he’d landed a punch on stagger back, and heard a muffled scream from his other side. When he turned he saw that another man was holding Lila up against the wall. Both men were dressed in dark colours with balaclavas covering their faces; and to Nick’s dismay both were holding knives.
‘Do not move or I will slit her throat,’ the man holding Lila against the wall said, bringing his knife up to her neck and causing her to whimper in distress. Nick froze.
‘Don’t hurt her,’ he said, keeping his voice level and holding both hands up in surrender. ‘I have cash on me, my watch, you can take whatever –’
‘We’re not interested in your money,’ the man Nick had punched told him, reaching for his own knife and stalking forward towards Nick. Nick frowned and started running through scenarios in his mind of how this was going to go, trying to come up with a strategy, but before he could make a move the man coming at him let out a bloodcurdling scream and dropped his knife.
‘What are you doing, you useless prick?’ the man holding Lila shouted, obviously reluctant to take his eyes off his victim.
‘Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus,’ the other man swore, clutching the shoulder of the arm that had been holding the knife, with good reason: the knife he had held in his hand was nothing compared to the one now sticking out of his upper arm.
‘Drop the knife.’
Nick and the wounded man turned to see a woman in a baseball cap attached to the back of Lila’s assailant like a small, vicious-looking monkey. She was, Nick realized, holding her own knife to the man’s throat. ‘Do not make me repeat myself,’ the woman said as Nick watched a small trickle of blood make its way from underneath her knife down the man’s neck. With no choice, the man dropped his weapon and held his hands up and away from Lila, who wasted no time scooting down the wall and falling into Nick.
‘Aargh!’ the man with the knife in his shoulder screamed as he pulled it out. Blood was now running freely down his arm, soaking his sleeve. He dropped onto the concrete and pressed his free hand to the wound. After taking in the scene around him with terrified eyes, he turned and ran.
‘Tell your boss to back off,’ the woman said into the other man’s ear. ‘Mr Chambers has protection, and after this little display he will have even more protection, you understand? Next time any of you try this again it won’t be shoulders I’m aiming for.’ She then leapt silently from his back. The man turned to glance at her for a moment, then started reaching for something behind him. A large shape moved out of the shadows with a low growl, and the man screamed as a dog’s jaws clamped down on his hand. He tried unsuccessfully to shake off the animal but was only released when the woman gave a low whistle. The hulking brown and black dog released the man but stayed next to him with its teeth bared and a warning growl. Taking this in, the man gave Nick one frustrated glance, then turned to run after his partner. The huge dog, a sort of Alsatian but obviously not pure bred, padded over to the woman, who bent to scratch his ears and mutter something in a foreign language.
Nick was not about to hang about with a female psychopath in a dark alley, even if she had saved his life, and began backing away with Lila in tow; but as he watched the woman straighten he registered a flicker of recognition, and when her blue eyes locked onto his own brown eyes, he froze.
