“Would you like me to leave?” Moira felt ill at ease, standing between them. “I’ve got some filing I could be—”
“Oh, no, not on my account. I’ll only be a minute.” She turned back to her husband. “I was passing and I thought I’d check whether you were likely to be late this evening. If you are, I might pop over to the Harrisons’. They’re doing mulled wine.”
“I . . . Yes, you do that. I can meet you there if I finish early.”
“That would be nice,” she said.
She gave off a faint scent of Nina Ricci. Moira had tried it the previous week in D. H. Evans, but had thought it a little pricey. Now she regretted not having bought it.
“I’ll try not to be too late.”
Mrs. Stirling didn’t seem in any hurry to leave. She stood in front of her husband, but she seemed more interested in looking at the office, the men at their desks. She surveyed it all with some concentration. It was as if she had never seen the place before.
“It’s been a while since you were here,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose it has.”
There was a short silence.
“Oh,” she said abruptly. “What are your drivers’ names?”
He frowned. “My drivers?”
She gave a little shrug. “I thought you might like me to organize a Christmas gift for each of them.”
He seemed nonplussed. “A Christmas gift? Well, Eric’s been with me the longest. I usually buy him a bottle of brandy. Have done for the last twenty years, I think. Simon fills in on the odd occasion. He’s a teetotaler, so I put a little extra in his last pay packet. I don’t think it’s anything you need to worry about.”
Mrs. Stirling seemed oddly disappointed. “Well, I’d like to help. I’ll buy the brandy,” she said finally, clutching her bag in front of her.
“That’s very . . . thoughtful of you,” he said.
She let her gaze wander across the office, then returned it to them. “Anyway, I imagine you must be terribly busy. As I said, I just thought I’d call in. Nice to see you . . . er . . .” Her smile wavered.
Moira was stung by the woman’s casual dismissal. How many times had they met over the last five years? And she couldn’t even be bothered to remember her name.
“Moira,” Mr. Stirling prompted, when the silence became uncomfortable.
“Yes. Moira. Of course. Nice to see you again.”
“I’ll be right back.” Moira watched as Mr. Stirling steered his wife to the door. They exchanged a few more remarks, and then, with a little wave of her gloved hand, Mrs. Stirling was gone.
The secretary took a deep breath, trying not to mind. Mr. Stirling stood immobile as his wife left the building.
Almost before she knew what she was doing, Moira walked out of the office and swiftly to her desk. She pulled a key from her pocket and opened the locked drawer, hunting through the various pieces of correspondence until she found it. She was back in Mr. Stirling’s office before he was.
He closed the door behind him, glancing through the glass wall, as if he was half expecting his wife to come back. He seemed softened, a little more at ease. “So,” he said, sitting down, “you were mentioning the office party. You’d been planning something.” A small smile played about his lips.
Her breath was tight in her chest. She had to swallow before she could speak normally. “Actually, Mr. Stirling, there’s something else.”
He had pulled out a letter, ready to sign. “Right-oh. What is it?”
“This arrived two days ago.” She handed him the handwritten envelope. “At the PO box you mentioned.” When he said nothing, she added, “I’ve been keeping an eye on it, as you asked.”
He stared at the envelope, then looked up at her, the color draining from his face so rapidly that she thought he might pass out. “Are you sure? This can’t be right.”
“But it—”
“You must have got the wrong number.”
“I can assure you I got the right PO box. Number thirteen. I used Mrs. Stirling’s name, as you . . . suggested.”
He ripped it open, then stooped forward over the desk as he read the few lines. She stood on the other side, not wanting to appear curious, aware that the atmosphere in the room had become charged. She was already afraid of what she had done.
When he looked up, he seemed to have aged several years. He cleared his throat, then crumpled up the sheet of paper with one hand and threw it with some force into the bin beneath his desk. His expression was fierce. “It must have been lost in the postal system. Nobody must know about this. Do you understand?”
She took a step backward. “Yes, Mr. Stirling. Of course.”
“Close the PO box down.”
“Now? I still have the audit report to—”
“This afternoon. Do whatever you need to do. Just close it down. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Stirling.” She tucked her file under her arm and let herself out of his office. She gathered up her handbag and coat and prepared to go to the post office.
Jennifer had planned to go home. She was tired, the trip to the office had been fruitless, and it had begun to rain, sending pedestrians hurrying along the pavement, collars up and heads down. But standing on the steps of her husband’s workplace, she had known she couldn’t go back to that silent house.
She stepped off the curb and hailed a cab, waving until she saw the yellow light swerve toward her. She climbed in, brushing raindrops from her red coat. “Do you know a place called Alberto’s?” she said, as the driver leaned back toward the dividing window.
“Which part of London is it in?” he said.
“I’m sorry, I have no idea. I thought you might know.”
He frowned. “There’s an Alberto’s club in Mayfair. I can take you there, but I’m not sure it’ll be open.”
“Fine,” she said, and settled back in the seat.
It took only fifteen minutes to get there. The taxi drew up, and the driver pointed across the road. “That’s the only Alberto’s I know,” he said. “Not sure if it’s your kind of place, ma’am.”
She wiped the window with her sleeve and peered out. Metal railings surrounded a basement entrance, the steps disappearing out of view. A weary sign bore the name, and two bedraggled yew trees stood in large pots at each side of the door. “That’s it?”
“You think it’s the right place?”
She managed a smile. “Well, I’ll soon find out.”
She paid him, and was left standing, in the thin rain, on the pavement. The door was half open, propped by a dustbin. As she entered, she was bombarded by the smell of alcohol, stale cigarette smoke, sweat, and perfume. She let her eyes adjust to the dim light. To her left a cloakroom was empty and unattended, a beer bottle and a set of keys on its counter. She walked along the narrow hall and pushed open double doors to find herself in a huge empty room, chairs stacked up on round tables in front of a small stage. Weaving in and out of them, an old woman dragged a vacuum cleaner, muttering to herself occasionally in apparent disapproval. A bar ran along one wall. Behind it a woman was smoking and talking to a man stacking the illuminated shelves with bottles. “Hold up,” the woman said, catching sight of her. “Can I help you, love?”
Jennifer felt the woman’s assessing gaze on her. It was not entirely friendly. “Are you open?”
“Do we look open?”
She held her bag to her stomach, suddenly self-conscious. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back another time.”
“Who d’you want, lady?” said the man, straightening up. He had dark, slicked-back hair and the kind of pale, puffy skin that told of too much alcohol and too little fresh air.
She stared at him, trying to work out if what she felt was a glimmer of recognition. “Have you . . . have you seen me in here before?” she asked.
He looked mildly amused. “Not if you say I haven’t.”
The woman cocked her head. “We have a very bad memory for faces in this place.”
Jennifer walked a few steps toward the bar. “Do you know someone called Felipe?”
“Who are you?” the woman demanded.
“I—it doesn’t matter.”
“Why do you want Felipe?”
Their faces had hardened. “We have a mutual friend,” she explained.
“Then your friend should have told you that Felipe would be a bit difficult to get hold of.”
She bit her lip, wondering how much she could reasonably explain. “It’s not someone I’m in touch with very—”
“He’s dead, lady.”
“What?”
“Felipe. Is dead. The place is under new management. We’ve had all sorts down here saying he owed them this and that, and I might as well tell you that you’ll get nothing from me.”
“I didn’t come here for—”
“Unless you can show me Felipe’s signature on an IOU, you’re getting nothing.” Now the woman was looking closely at her clothes, her jewelry, smirking, as if she had decided why Jennifer might be there. “His family gets his estate. What’s left of it. That would include his wife,” she said nastily.
“I had nothing to do with Mr. Felipe personally. I’m sorry for your loss,” Jennifer said primly. As quickly as she could, she walked out of the club and back up the stairs into the gray daylight.
Moira rummaged through the boxes of decorations until she had found what she wanted, then sorted and laid out what was within. She pinned two pieces of tinsel around each door. She sat at her desk for almost half an hour and restuck the paper chains that had come apart during the year, then taped them in garlands above the desks. To the wall she pinned several pieces of string, and hung on them the greetings cards that had been sent by commercial partners. Above the light fittings she draped shimmering strands of foil, making sure that they were not so close to the bulbs as to be a fire risk.
Outside, the skies had darkened, the sodium lights coming on down the length of the street. Gradually, in much the same order that they always did, the staff of Acme Mineral and Mining’s London office left the building. First Phyllis and Elsie, the typists, who always left at five on the dot, even though they seemed to carry no such sense of rigorous punctuality when it came to clocking in. Then David Moreton, in Accounts, and shortly after him, Stevens, who would retreat to the pub on the corner for several bracing shots of whiskey before he made his way home. The rest left in small groups, wrapping themselves in scarves and coats, the men picking up theirs from the stands in the corner, a few waving good-bye to her as they passed Mr. Stirling’s office. Felicity Harewood, in charge of the payroll, lived only one stop away from Moira in Streatham, but never once suggested they catch the same bus. When Felicity had first been hired, in May, Moira had thought it might be rather nice to have someone to chat to on the way home, a woman with whom she could exchange recipes or pass a few comments on the day’s events in the fuggy confines of the 159. But Felicity left each evening without even a backward look. On the one occasion Moira and she had been on the same bus, she had kept her head stuck in a paperback novel for most of the journey, even though Moira was almost certain she knew that she was only two seats behind.
Mr. Stirling left at a quarter to seven. He had been distracted and impatient for most of the afternoon, telephoning the factory manager to berate him about sickness rates, and canceling a meeting he had arranged for four. When she had returned from the post office, he had glanced at her, as if to confirm that she had done what he had asked, then returned to his work.
Moira pulled the two spare desks to the edge of the room beside Accounts. She spread them with festive tablecloths and pinned some strands of tinsel to the edges. In ten days’ time this would be the base for the buffet; in the meantime it would be useful to have somewhere to put the gifts that arrived from suppliers, and the Christmas postbox through which the staff were supposed to send each other seasonal greetings.