We polished off the bottle, split the bill, and got up to brave the wind and the rain outside. We walked along the covered gangway, bucking on the choppy water, and stood under the awning on the pavement. Neither of us had coats or umbrellas.
We were standing staring in dismay at the cold wet night, when a man pushed past us. He stopped for a second in front of Debbie, thrust his hand up to her blouse and squeezed. 'Miss me, love?' he said and gave a short dry laugh. He turned to me for just a second, looked at me with strangely limp blue eyes, twitched the corners of his mouth in a fake smile and ducked into the rain.
I stood still for a moment in surprise, my reflexes dulled by the wine. Then, as I lunged out into the rain to catch him, Debbie caught my sleeve. 'Don't Paul! Stop!'
'But you saw what he did,' I said, hesitating, with Debbie pulling on my arm.
'Please, Paul. Don't bother. Please.'
I looked into the gloom, but the man had already disappeared. Debbie's face was pleading, and, for once, dead serious. And she was afraid.
I shrugged my shoulders and got back into the shelter of the awning, soaked from just a few seconds in the rain.
'Who the hell is he?'
'Don't ask.'
'But he can't just do that to you.'
'Look, Paul. Please. Just drop it. Please.'
'OK, OK. Let's get you in a taxi.'
Not surprisingly, given the rain, no taxis appeared, and after five minutes we agreed to depart to our respective tube stations, Debbie hunched under her umbrella to get to the Northern line at Embankment, and me sprinting through the rain to Temple.
As the underground train lurched westwards on its never-ending journey round the Circle line, I wondered about the man I had seen grope Debbie. Who could he have been? A former lover? A former work colleague? A total stranger? A drunk? I had no idea. Nor had I any idea why Debbie refused to tell me anything about him. She had looked scared, rather than shocked or offended. Very odd.
I had caught a good glimpse of him in the moment he had turned to me. He was thin and wiry, about thirty-five, and wearing an unremarkable city suit. I could still see his eyes. Pale blue, dead, the pupils almost invisible pinpricks. I shuddered.
The train stopped at Victoria. A crowd of people barged off, and one or two got on. As the train jolted into motion again, my mind wandered. I tried to read the newspaper of the old man sitting opposite me, but I couldn't quite make it out. The conversation I had had with Debbie about my girlfriends, or rather lack of them, drifted back into my mind. I had just not tried over the last few years as far as women were concerned. It wasn't that I disliked female company, far from it, it was just that so many relationships had started with high hopes and ended in disappointment that it did not seem worth the effort. Well, I should probably change that. Debbie was right; however single-minded I was about succeeding at work, there had to be time for some other things.
The thought of Debbie made me smile. Her good humour was irrepressible. I realised that I looked forward to facing her wide grin and gentle teasing as I came into work every day. I had grown very fond of her over the last few months.
Hold on. Had Debbie anyone in mind when she was encouraging me to find myself a girlfriend? It would be typical of me to miss a come-on like that. No, I was just imagining it, surely. Not Debbie. Not me. Still, in some strange way, the idea appealed.
CHAPTER 5
I was busy the next morning. The phones didn't stop ringing. The market was active. Institutional fund managers were switching out of Deutschmarks into dollars ahead of what they believed to be an interest rate cut by the Bundesbank. The Street had been taken by surprise. The build-up of supply of eurobonds that had preceded the recent Sweden issue had almost all been bought, and a number of brokers had been caught short. Salesmen were calling us to try to tempt us to sell our positions to them. But we were hanging on. Let them sweat.
Debbie was late, so I had to answer all the phones myself. It was hard work.
At nine I called over to Karen, 'Heard anything from Debbie?' We hadn't had that heavy a night's drinking last night; she should have been able to make her way in.
'Nothing yet,' she said.
At nine thirty, Hamilton wandered by my desk. 'Any sign of Debbie?'
'Not yet.'
'You would think she would at least have the good grace to call in sick,' he said.
I didn't argue. If nothing else, it was a bit stupid just not to show up. Any excuse was better than no excuse. Debbie had days off sick quite frequently, but she usually called in with a story.
The morning progressed. I had managed to hold on to all our positions, despite the best efforts of Cash, Claire, David and the other salesmen to tempt them away from me.
My concentration was broken by Karen's voice. A note of concern, almost fear, in it attracted my attention and that of the others in the room.
'Hamilton! It's the police. They want to talk to someone about Debbie.'
Hamilton picked up the phone. We all watched him. Within a few seconds, his eyebrows had pulled together slightly. He talked quietly for five minutes or so. Then he slowly replaced the handset. He stood up and walked over to stand by my desk, by Debbie's desk. He motioned for everyone to gather round.
'I have some bad news. Debbie is dead. She was drowned last night.'
The shock of these words hit me hard in the face, leaving my ears singing and my eyes out of focus. I slumped back in my chair. When Hamilton was talking to the police, wild fears of what might have happened to Debbie had run through my mind, but they hadn't prepared me for this blow. I felt the emptiness of the desk behind me, usually the centre of gossip and laughter, now silent. I only half heard Hamilton continue.
'Her body was found at six o'clock this morning in the Thames by Millwall Docks. The police will be round this afternoon to talk to us. They asked me to check who was the last to see her last night.'
'1 was,' I said, or rather I meant to say. What came out of my mouth was just a croak. 'I was,' I repeated, more clearly this time.
Hamilton turned to me, his face grim. 'OK, Paul, they'll probably want a statement from you.'
Everyone looked at me, enquiringly. 'I last saw her about half past nine last night,' I said. 'We had just had a drink. She was walking along the Embankment. I didn't see anything else.' Despite the turmoil inside me, I managed to keep my voice under control.
'Do they know how it happened?' asked Rob.
'Not yet,' replied Hamilton. 'They are not ruling anything out, according to the policeman.'
How it happened? She fell in, surely. But how do you just fall into the Thames? That would have to be very difficult, however windy the night. That meant she either jumped, or she was pushed. The dead eyes and thin face of the man who had groped Debbie just before she left the boat, loomed up in front of me. I bet he had something to do with it.
The phones were flashing angrily. Hamilton said, 'We had better answer those.'
None of us talked to the others. It was difficult to think of anything to say. We each suffered our shock privately. Karen sobbed quietly into a handkerchief. Rob and Gordon stood around, looking for something to occupy themselves with.
I just stared across at Debbie's desk.
Until last night, I hadn't realised how close we had become over the last couple of months. I could still see her round cheeks glowing in the soft light of the boat, eyes bubbling with laughter. That was only hours ago, fourteen hours to be precise. How could someone who had so much life in her suddenly not be? Just cease to exist. It didn't make sense. I could feel my eyes smarting. I put my head in my hands and just sat there.
I don't know how long it was before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up. It was Hamilton.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You were a good team.'
I looked up at him and nodded.
'Do you want to go home?' Hamilton asked.