Twenty-one
Monday arrived. I woke up early with butterflies in my stomach and had a last-minute panic while cleaning my teeth. Was I doing the right thing? I had a word with myself in the bathroom mirror, an out-loud pep talk that made Charlie ask, ‘Who were you talking to?’ when I went back into the bedroom.
‘Myself.’
‘First sign of madness.’ She looked me up and down. I was wearing my new work clothes. It wasn’t the kind of job that required a suit (if I’d turned up wearing one I think I would have been sent home) but I had new jeans, a new white shirt, new Converse trainers. ‘You look hot.’
‘Thanks. So do you.’
She examined herself in the full-length mirror, at her own work clothes: the pencil skirt, the blouse with the Peter Pan collar. ‘No. I definitely don’t look hot when I’m Charlotte.’
‘But it was Charlotte that first attracted me,’ I reminded her.
‘Yes. In an eye clinic.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Better go. You don’t want to be late on your first day.’
I stood at the door, crutch in hand. I didn’t need it to walk around the flat any more but still found it necessary when walking any distance. Charlie and I had agreed not to travel to work together because, Charlie told me, she was always grumpy on her journey into work and she didn’t want me to suffer, especially when it was so important for me to arrive at the office feeling relaxed.
‘I’m nervous,’ I said.
Charlie came over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘You’ll be great. Don’t worry. Call me at lunchtime, OK?’
‘Maybe we could meet for lunch?’
She ruffled my hair. ‘I expect your boss or new colleagues will take you out for lunch. You normally get treated extra-special on your first day.’
On the bus, I couldn’t help but think about the lost bag. Charlie told me she was calling the lost property office every day but it hadn’t turned up. I had given up hope. Maybe it was on a landfill site somewhere. Most probably, as Charlie had said, it had already been destroyed. I had called Tilly and she’d offered to make copies of some of her photos of Mum and Dad. They wouldn’t be perfect but I didn’t have any other option. This time, I wasn’t going to hide the pictures away, unable to look at them. I was going to get them framed, put them on display.
I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t believed Charlie’s story. Something about the way she had told it, or the incredible absent-mindedness needed for her to have left it on the bus. But then, people did that kind of thing every day. I had once left my expensive laptop on a train. And why would she lie? What else would she have done with the bag? I could imagine her getting upset about the mementoes of my exes. But she hadn’t been afraid of showing her hurt when she felt insecure, like with the girl in the park, and I couldn’t imagine her sneaking the bag out of my flat and secretly destroying it. It was completely out of character. If she could do that then . . . well, it would show I didn’t know her at all.
So I cast my doubts aside, told myself I was being stupid, that it was nothing but an accident. I forgave her. Thinking, cynically, that it was one in the bank for me, if I ever did something like break one of her favourite teacups or shrink her clothes in the washing machine. All couples must go through this at some point: in our case, it was unfortunate that she was trying to do something lovely and ended up doing something that hurt me.
I changed buses and, before I knew it, I was heading past Old Street roundabout and towards Victor’s office. I was using a single crutch now, and only outdoors, but it was still slow going.
The office was on the second floor of a converted warehouse, like so many of the offices around here. A few steps led up to a solid metal door, the names of the companies in the building – all of them something to do with the media or internet – written in bright colours beside a row of buzzers. I was ten minutes early and I stood and looked up at the building, giving myself another little pep talk – silent this time.
A police car was parked outside the office in front of the steps. As people arrived and went inside, they all looked at the car. A couple of smokers stood and had a conversation beside it. I recognised one of them, was sure she worked for Victor. I’d seen her in the office and also on the Meet the Team page Charlie had been looking at. An attractive young woman with short white-blonde hair. She saw me looking and said, ‘Are you Andrew?’
I went over. ‘Hi. Yes, I start today.’
She and the guy she was with – trimmed beard, thick glasses – stared at my crutch and she said, ‘Awesome. I’m Amber. This is Pete. We heard about your accident. Very dramatic.’
‘It was more sit-com-like,’ I said.
‘So, what, did you just, like, fall?’ Pete asked.
As with Victor, I didn’t want to tell them my suspicions about being pushed. It would make me sound paranoid. ‘Yeah, it was snowing and really slippery.’
‘Tough break,’ Amber said. ‘But you’re all better now and here you are! Oh my God, we are so busy. You’re starting just in time. Victor has been telling everyone how amazing you are. Like, the Wowcom stuff you did? That was amazing.’
I probably blushed.
‘Weird shit happening in the office this morning, though,’ Amber continued. ‘I got here early—’
‘Employee of the year,’ said Pete.
‘Fuck you. I got here early and Victor was already here, like he always is—’
‘That why you get here early? To see Victor, eh? Naughty girl.’
‘Will you let me finish, you twat?’ She rolled her eyes and Pete guffawed. He was obviously in love with her. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah. Victor has got a couple of cops in his office, sitting on the sofas with him, a man and a woman. I couldn’t see their faces but Victor looked sick. Like they were giving him really bad news.’ Her expression changed. ‘Fuck, I hope everything’s OK with, like, his wife and kids.’
‘Oh, it’s probably something to do with his parking tickets,’ Pete said. ‘He was telling me once he’s got something like ten unpaid congestion charges. He refuses to pay it on—’
He was interrupted by the metal door opening and one of the police officers emerging: the WPC. To my surprise, she was followed out by Victor, his head down, not looking at anyone, bald spot on display, the male PC coming out behind him. We watched as they put him in the back of the police car and slowly drove off.
‘Oh my days,’ said Amber.
‘What the fuck?’ said Pete.
We went upstairs to the office. My first day at work wasn’t starting as I’d imagined it. I trailed after Amber and Pete into the open-plan room, where almost everyone was standing looking dazed and worried, gathered around the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist herself, whose name was Claire, looked like she’d just been told World War 3 had started and nuclear bombs were cruising towards London.
‘We just saw Victor getting in a police car,’ Amber said.
The babble of voices was so confusing, voices overlapping, everyone saying nothing very much at the same time, that it was impossible to work out if anyone had any useful information. I saw a few people look at me, this stranger in their midst, as if I were somehow to blame. Then a voice called out from halfway down the office: ‘Guys! Look at this!’
We swarmed down the office, with me at the back of the group on my crutch, Amber darting towards the front of the crowd.
There were lots of ‘Oh my Gods’ and ‘Fucks’ and ‘Holy shits’. Lots of people, having seen what the bloke who’d called out was looking at, hurried off to peer at their own machines, giving me enough space to shuffle forward so I could see what was on the computer.
It was a web page, with Victor’s photograph at the top. The title of the page jumped out at me: Victor Codsall – Dangerous Paedophile. I couldn’t read the rest of the text from where I stood, but Amber began to read out extracts.
‘Victor Codsall is
a paedophile who preys on pre-pubescent girls . . . When we baited him and sent him a message purporting to be a twelve-year-old called Lucy, he responded and arranged to meet for sex . . . Codsall was fully aware he was meeting a twelve-year-old. He also boasted of downloading vile images of underage girls . . .’ Amber broke off. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘It’s got to be bullshit,’ said a young man standing next to me.
‘There’s no way . . . He’s got kids,’ said someone else.
Apart from that, the office was hushed, with just the sound of keyboards tapping and mice clicking breaking the stunned silence as more and more people went to their machines to look at the web page. I got closer to the desk and made a mental note of the URL.
As I turned away, two more police officers came into the room and went into Victor’s office. A few minutes later they came out, carrying his desktop computer and a laptop. Everyone watched, mute.
‘What should we do?’ someone asked.
A brunette in a polka dot dress stood up. ‘I feel sick. I can’t believe we work for a paedo.’
‘He’s not a paedo!’ Amber snapped.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
I looked up. A smartly dressed woman with a blonde bob had come into the office. This was Emma, the chief operations officer, Victor’s second-in-command. She put her bag down on her desk and her hands on her hips. ‘Well, is somebody going to tell me?’
I sat down and waited while Victor’s employees crowded round Emma, filling her in, her eyes widening and jaw dropping as she made sense of the babble. But she gave the impression that this was the kind of situation she was born to deal with. Pretty soon, she had everyone back at their desks, and she was in Victor’s office, talking animatedly on the phone.
I knocked on the office door and she gave me a ‘Who on earth are you?’ look.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m meant to start work today,’ I said.
‘Oh. Andrew, is it?’ She beckoned for me to come in and sit down. ‘Hang on a minute.’
She searched through the papers on Victor’s desk, huffing and tutting.
My eye caught the photo of Victor’s children and his wife on his desk. There was no way, surely, that he was guilty of what the web page alleged. But how well did I know him?
I thought about him getting into the police car, refusing to look at anybody. The accusations on the website made me want to throw up. Twelve-year-old girls?
‘For goodness sake,’ Emma said. ‘Vic emailed me and said he was going to sort out your induction himself. He hasn’t left proper instructions.’ She sighed. ‘Listen, Andrew, I think it might be best if you go home, rather than hang around here with nothing to do. Until this . . . mess is sorted out, or at least till I’ve had a chance to talk to Vic.’
‘But . . .’
‘Yes, I think that’s best.’
Having made her mind up, she ushered me out of the office and told me she’d call me.
I stood outside, in a state of shock. My job seemed to have ended before it had even began. Maybe Victor would be back tomorrow, the police would be apologising, the whole thing would be laughed off. But if the allegations were true, my misfortune was trivial. It wasn’t my life that had just been destroyed.
Twenty-two
I texted Charlie to tell her what had happened, but she didn’t reply so I guessed she was in a meeting. I didn’t want to hang around for three hours waiting for her lunch break so I headed home, the buses half-empty now, my head reverberating from the shock of what had just happened. Beneath the concern for Victor was a little self-interested voice: what was I going to do for money now? How long would it take for the mess to be sorted out? And if Victor didn’t come back quickly, would Emma or whoever was in charge now decide they didn’t need me after all?
By the time I got home I was in a muted state of panic. I checked my bank account online. I had enough to keep me going for another month, but that was it. Apart from Victor, and Karen, I hadn’t done any work for anyone for over six months. My contacts book was so creaky it wouldn’t have mattered if Charlie had left it on a bus instead of my bag of mementoes. I was going to have to send some emails, go fishing for work.
I made myself a coffee and tried to rein in my growing panic. This whole thing might blow over by tomorrow. I could afford to wait a day or two to see what happened before I started reaching out for work.
As I was about to switch off my computer, I remembered something: Karen still hadn’t told me if she liked the new site, meaning I couldn’t invoice her yet.
And that triggered another memory, something I’d completely forgotten. Just before I’d passed out from taking the sleeping pills, I’d received a text from Karen. What had it said? I tried to recall . . . Something about calling her urgently?
I checked my phone. There was no such text. The last text from her was from the day of our last meeting, when we’d been arranging where to meet. That was it.
I stared at the screen of my phone. I must have dreamt the text, hallucinated it as I’d slipped into my twenty-four-hour slumber. I sent Karen another reminder email and temporarily forgot about it.
At lunchtime, I called Charlie and gave her a rundown of the situation. She was shocked.
‘I’m worried about money,’ I said. ‘If this doesn’t turn out to be a big mistake – which I’m praying it will, for everyone’s sake – and whoever takes over from Victor decides they don’t need me, I’m going to be in deep shit.’
There was a pause at the other end and I knew what she was going to say before I heard the words. ‘Maybe I could move in. Then I could pay half the bills. I mean, I’m there all the time anyway.’
These were exactly the same thoughts I’d had a few days ago.
Before I could respond, she said, ‘Well, let’s not make any decisions now. Maybe we can talk about it when I get home.’ She paused. ‘Oh, can you do me a big favour and take my suit to the drycleaner? It’s on the chair at the end of the bed.’
‘Sure.’ I was tempted to point out that it wasn’t that easy for me to run errands while I still wasn’t properly on two feet, but didn’t want to be a wimp.
‘Thanks, gorgeous.’
It was only later that I realised what she’d said before. Home. When I get home.
I took Charlie’s clothes – one of her ‘Charlotte’ outfits, a slim-fit grey trouser suit – to the drycleaner in Herne Hill, about ten minutes away. It didn’t look dirty to me but my standards were clearly lower than Charlie’s. I paid for the super-express service and, while waiting, went over the road to the park.
I stood by the lake where Charlie and I had made love. The ice had melted now and the ducks looked relieved. Standing by the low metal fence I closed my eyes and remembered that evening: the delicious surprise, the slap of the cold water, Charlie’s pale skin in the moonlight, the spark in her eyes. It still overwhelmed me, the way she affected me physically, that giddy intoxicated feeling that came over me when I looked at her, the naked need to touch her, to have her close to me. The taste of her kiss, the little murmuring sounds she made in bed, the earthy scent of her flesh. A great rush of love surged through me, compelling me to take out my phone and send her a text.
I want you to come live with me. Share my nest. I love you and want to be with you forever xxxxxxx PS I wish you were here right now so I could kiss you . . . everywhere xxxxx
She replied almost straight away. Where exactly do you want to kiss me? Xxxx
I think you know . . . xxxx
I went back to pick up Charlie’s suit, then walked home, still buzzing from the text exchange, passers-by glancing questioningly at my dizzy grin. Whatever else happened in my life, as long as I had Charlie, everything would be OK.
Walking back to the flat, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Thinking it was probably Charlie again, I put the s
uit down on a wall and wrestled my phone into the open.
The message was from Sasha.
Hey you. Hope you’re OK. Can you call me? I need to talk to you. X
I contemplated the message. I hadn’t spoken to her for two weeks, though I had been meaning to get in touch. Sasha’s friendship was still important to me, even if I was going to have to find some way of having her in my life if she and Charlie couldn’t get on.
I sat on the wall, Charlie’s suit beside me, and called her straight back.
‘Andrew. Thank you so much. I didn’t know if you’d call.’
She sounded oddly formal, but when I spoke, I did too. ‘That’s all right. I’ve been meaning to call you for ages. Are you OK?’
It took a minute or two for the conversation to shift, the ice breaking off the edges, until it felt natural again, though still not like our normal easy exchanges. Not yet anyway.
I told her about Victor and we speculated about what it might mean for the Wowcom contract. Sasha told me that Wowcom had terminated contracts with suppliers in the past because they were worried their ‘brand might become contaminated’. This possibility hadn’t occurred to me.
‘Do you think he’s guilty?’ she asked.
‘No. I mean, I don’t know. He never struck me as . . . the type.’
I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. ‘You mean he didn’t wear a grubby mac and have a box of puppies in his car.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’
An awkward silence fell between us. My eye was sore. I had noticed that this happened increasingly when I was stressed. Something to do with eye pressure, perhaps. The little bubble of excitement I’d been floating in, thinking about Charlie moving in with me, had well and truly popped.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ I asked.
I heard her take a deep breath. ‘It’s kind of difficult to explain without sounding ridiculous or mad. Can you meet me after work?’