She was slick with perspiration and completely disoriented and it took her a few seconds to realise that her mobile was ringing. Not the sharp, insistent buzz of her alarm but actually ringing.
‘Good. You’re awake.’
Hard on the heels of her disturbing dream, Gabriel’s voice cut through the fog of her sleepiness as effectively as a bucket of ice-cold water, and she sat up in bed, glancing at the clock on her bedside table which showed that it wasn’t yet six-thirty.
‘Is that you, Gabriel?’
‘How many calls do you get from men at this hour of the morning? No, don’t answer that.’
‘What’s wrong with your voice?’ This was the first time he had ever called her at home on her mobile and she looked around her furtively, as though suspecting that at any second he might materialise from the shadows.
Thankfully, her bedroom was as it always was—small with magnolia walls, some nondescript curtains and two colourful pictures on either side of the dressing table, scenes of Cornwall painted by a local artist whom Alice knew vaguely through her mother. An averagely passable room in a small, uninteresting house whose only selling point was its proximity to the tube.
In the bedroom next to hers, her flat mate, Lucy, would still be sleeping.
‘It seems I’m ill.’
‘You’re ill?’ The thought of Gabriel being ill was almost inconceivable and she felt a sudden grip of panic.
Whatever was wrong with him, it would be serious. He was not the sort of man to succumb to a passing virus. He was just too...strong. She couldn’t imagine that there could be any virus on the planet daring enough to attack him.
‘Ill with what?’ She brought the decibel level of her worried voice down to normal. ‘Have you called the doctor?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What do you mean of course not?’
‘Are you dressed?’
His impatient voice, which she had become accustomed to, sliced through her concern and she glanced in the dressing-table mirror facing her to see her still sleepy face staring back at her.
Her straight hair was all over the place and the baggy tee-shirt, her bedtime attire of choice, was half-slipping off her shoulder, exposing the soft swell of a breast.
Self-consciously, she hoiked it up and then lay back against the pillow.
‘Gabriel, my alarm doesn’t go off for another forty-five minutes...’
‘In that case, switch it off and think about getting up and out of bed.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Sore throat. Headache. High fever. I’ve got flu.’
‘You’ve phoned me at...at six-twenty in the morning to tell me that you’ve got a cold?’
‘I think you’ll find that what I have is considerably more serious than a cold. You need to get up, get into the office and bring the two files I left on my desk. Not all of the information is on my computer and I need to access it in its entirety.’
She had worked with him long enough to know that he dished out orders in the full expectation that they would not be countermanded, but she was still outraged that he had seen fit to yank her out of sleep so that he could...
What, exactly?
‘Bring your files?’
‘Correct. To my house. And bring your computer as well. You’ll have to work from here. It’s not ideal but it’s the best I can come up with. I can’t make it into the office today.’
‘Surely you can just take the day off if you’re not feeling well, Gabriel?’ Like any other normal human being, she was tempted to add. ‘If you tell me what you want me to work on, I can do it in the office and I can scan and email the files over to you, if you really think that you’re up to working.’
‘If I’d wanted you to do that, I would have said so. And I can’t keep talking indefinitely. My throat’s infected. If you head for the office now, you can be with me within an hour and a half. Less, if you get your skates on. Got a pen?
‘A pen?’ Alice parroted in dismay as this new unfolding of her day ahead began to take shape in her head.
‘A pen—instrument for writing. Have you got one to hand? You’ll need to write down my address and postcode. And for God’s sake, take a taxi, Alice. I know you’re fond of the London public transport system, but we might as well get this show on the road as quickly as possible. There’s a lot to get through and I won’t be up to much beyond six... It’s ridiculous. I haven’t been ill in years. I must have caught this from you.’
‘You haven’t caught anything from me! I’m fighting fit!’
‘Good. Because you have a lot to get through today. Now, let me give you my address.’