At two, she discreetly unhooked her bag from the back of her chair and made her way into the toilets. The face that looked back at her from the mirror in the brightly lit room was the grey colour of old grout and she quickly extracted a small red make-up case from the depths of her bag and began applying foundation and then something from a small tube she’d ordered online on impulse after seeing it advertised in a Sunday supplement as a miracle product. It was supposed to give her cheeks a dewy sheen but Sarah couldn’t help thinking it made her look as if she was permanently in a light sweat. Kevin Bromsgrove, the brewery’s deputy director, was old school and set a lot of store in appearance, so she knew it was worth making the effort. By the time she swiped open the door of the main office, she was feeling almost human. She’d used the green eyeshadow that set off her red hair and for once she hadn’t ended up looking like she had two three-day-old black eyes.
Seeing Rachel Masters standing by her desk with a face like thunder burst her buoyant mood like an overblown balloon.
‘What the hell is going on?’ Rachel’s sculpted face was distorted by anger.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’ve just had Kevin Bromsgrove on the phone. Apparently you were due in Notting Hill twenty minutes ago.’
‘No, you’re wrong. Our meeting was for three o’clock. Look.’ She pointed to her whiteboard, and was mortified to see how much her finger shook.
‘You’ve obviously written it down wrong. What’s the matter with you? This is one of our best clients.’
Sarah felt sick. She was cold all over.
‘I wouldn’t have made a mistake. I know I copied it exactly from my notebook. I was really careful because there had been so many changes. Look, I’ll show you.’
She snatched up her weekly desk organizer and started leafing through it frantically.
‘Here,’ she said, landing on the page for the previous week. ‘It clearly says . . . Oh.’
Kevin Bromsgrove, 2 p.m.
In her mind she saw herself writing it down and confirming it three times with Bromsgrove’s secretary on the phone. Then later, standing at her whiteboard with the notebook open in front of her, copying down the time. Double checking. Triple checking. She didn’t make mistakes like this.
‘I’ll go right now. I can be there in twenty-five minutes—’
‘It’s too late. He’s gone.’
Rachel wasn’t so much saying the words as spitting them out like apple pips.
Sarah felt like Joe or Sam when caught out in some naughtiness, all wobbly bottom lip and frozen-faced fear. When Rachel had stalked off back to her office, Sarah slumped into her desk and put her head in her shaking hands. No one approached her.
19
Anne
After the shock of the pristine kitchen with its chilling feeding rota stuck to the fridge – that ‘L’ written against Monday and Friday, evidence of Laurie’s forced involvement – Ed Kowalsky and I stayed close by each other. I was glad he was there, as if his glasses and his corduroy pants and his rubber-soled suede shoes could somehow mitigate against the sheet of paper on the fridge and the sourness of the air and those regimented supplies in the cupboards and Noelle Egan’s dead eyes.
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ asked Sergeant Cavanagh as if we were prospective buyers and he was showing us around.
By the time we’d reached the upstairs landing, he was already wheezing. He paused at the top, leaning heavily on the post.
‘You guys help yourselves. I’ll be right here. Kid’s bedroom kinda creeps me out, to be honest.’
There was a tight feeling in my chest as I walked into the first room, so it was a relief to find it contained mostly office equipment. There was a large desk along one wall, its surface completely clear of clutter. A leather swivel chair was neatly tucked underneath. On the wall directly in front of the desk was a framed needlepoint sampler which read The price of greatness is responsibility with Winston Churchill’s name in smaller letters underneath.
‘Guess this guy Egan really rated himself.’ Ed was trying to lighten the atmosphere but he sounded false and unconvincing.
‘You’re assuming this is his office? It could just as easily be hers.’
I was playing devil’s advocate, of course. We both knew this was Peter Egan’s lair. Though I’d tried to avoid the news, I’d have to have been living on another planet not to have heard about his obsession with tidiness, how the sheets had to be changed every day, how he was fascinated by war and collected medals from dead soldiers that he bought on eBay or at private auction and which the police had found in special leather-bound display cases. Though conspicuously empty, the sterile room felt oppressive with his presence. I thought back to those close-together eyes, that paper-cut smile . . . and shivered.