“Hello?” she said.
“Oh, hello,” said the female voice at the other end. “My name’s Tessa. I share a house with Chris... Christine Jones.”
“Oh, yes?” Judy’s heart sank. She knew what a call like this meant. Then she brightened. “Tessa, yes, hello. Remember me? Judy Clarke. We met at Christine’s birthday party.”
“Judy...? Oh yes, hello again, how are you?”
“Not so bad. Is Christine ill?”
“Not exactly. But she’s had a bit of bad news, a bereavement.”
“Oh dear.”
“Family, an aunt. I think they were very close.”
“An aunt? Oh dear, I am sorry.”
“Well, these things...”
“So Christine’s not coming in today?”
“Well, that’s the thing. She’s gone off. The funeral’s not till Wednesday.”
“Wednesday! God, I need to speak to her. There are things that need —”
“She said she thought you could cope.”
“Yes, well, maybe we can but it’s still...”
“If I hear from her, shall I tell her to call you?”
“Could you get in touch with her? Is she at her mum’s in Doncaster? Maybe if you gave me the phone number...?”
“She didn’t leave one.”
“That’s not like —”
“She was a bit distraught. She’s not in Doncaster anyway. The aunt lived somewhere in Liverpool.”
“Yes, I see.” Liverpool? Christine hadn’t mentioned an aunt in Liverpool.
“Shall I get her to call you?”
“Yes, please, Tessa. I really need to know about Dobson’s and about the MTD meeting.”
“Hold on, I’ll write that down. Dobson’s...”
“And the MTD meeting. Management Training Directive. Just tell her MTD, she’ll know what it is.”
“Okay.”
“And if you do hear from her, please tell her I’m sorry.”
“Yes, thank you, I will.”
“Oh, and Tessa?”
“Yes?”
“Have you got a cold or something? Your voice sounds hoarse.”
“Must be the anabolic steroids. Bye, Judy.”
“Bye, Tessa,” said Judy, putting down the phone. She sighed. Oh, hell. No Christine till Thursday. No one to steer the ship for the next three days. Three days off for a bereavement. She wondered how Mrs. Pyle in personnel would react to that. She didn’t like you taking off three consecutive days for major surgery, never mind a funeral. Liverpool? An aunt in Liverpool? Oh well, it came to us all, didn’t it? Maybe she’d phone Christine’s house tonight... talk to Tessa again, see if Christine had been in touch.
Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. Derek was supposed to be taking her out to the pictures. That was typical of him, choosing Monday night. He knew the cinemas were half-price on a Monday...
“There goes another one,” said her colleague Martin, coming into the room.
“What?”
“A motorcade.” He walked to the window. She joined him, peering down. Four growling motorbikes preceded the slow-moving convoy of long black cars.
“Wonder who it is this time?” she said.
“I can’t see. Usually there’s a flag on the front of the chief’s car. Can you see one?”
She craned her neck. “No,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“I feel we should be throwing down confetti or something.”
He laughed. “You mean ticker tape. Except these days, we’d have to use the leftovers from the paper shredder instead.”
She laughed at this, at the idea of tipping a binful of shredded documents out of the window. Martin could be really funny at times. If he took off his glasses, he wasn’t bad-looking either. Nice bum, too. He seemed to sense what she was thinking and turned towards her, taking off his glasses to wipe them with his hankie. There were red marks either side of his nose where the frames pinched.
“So,” he said, “what are you doing tonight, Judy?”
She thought for a moment, swallowed, and said: “Nothing.”
Witch put down the receiver. Shit, merde, scheisse. Trust her to end up speaking to someone who knew Tessa. A girl called Judy... who sounded concerned about Christine Jones. Concerned enough to pick up the phone and make some inquiries? Concerned enough to telephone the real Tessa this evening? Witch bit her bottom lip. Dispose of the girl Judy? No, it would be too suspicious. Two people disappearing from the same office... a laughable idea. No, this would have to be one of those rare occasions where she was forced to trust to luck. That’s all there was to it. Maybe she should read her tarot again, see what it had planned for her. Maybe she shouldn’t. What good would it do if the news were bad? She’d still have to go through with it. Too late to back out now.
She had time to kill. Her meeting with the Dutchman wasn’t till lunchtime. She took her hand mirror out of her shoulder bag and looked at herself. She’d cut and dyed her hair, plucked her eyebrows, dusted her cheeks. She felt she resembled the photo of Christine Jones on her security pass almost more than Christine Jones herself did. After all, the photo had been taken some time ago. Christine’s hair had grown out since it was taken. But Witch’s was just the right length. And Christine had let her eyebrows grow out, too. Sensible woman. It was an unnecessary and painful chore. All to attract the male...
She placed the mirror back in her shoulder bag. She was also carrying Christine’s office-issue satchel, containing a few of her files but also some bits and pieces which were specifically, unquestionably Witch’s own. She came out of the phone booth and, in less than ten steps, was back on Victoria Street. Just in time to see the tail end of the convoy. A policeman, who had been holding back traffic at the intersection, now told pedestrians they could cross the road.
“Just a bloody nuisance, this conference,” muttered one elderly lady, wheeling her shopping trolley off the sidewalk and onto the road, making it rattle noisily as she pushed it.
A driver, stuck in line and awaiting permission to move, opened his car door and leaned out.
“How much longer, guv?” he called to the policeman.
“Couple more minutes,” the policeman called back. He shook his head at Witch. “Some people got no patience.”
“Patience is a virtue,” she agreed. For some reason, he laughed at this. Witch walked on. She wasn’t headed for 1-19 Victoria Street. She was making for another DTI building closer to Victoria Station. It was a very short walk. Not enough time for her to become nervous. She went to push open the glass door to the building, but a man, just leaving, held it open for her.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile. She strode through the lobby, her security pass held out in her hand as she passed the guard desk. The man on duty looked at her dully, blinked, and returned to his reading. She waited for the lift to descend, and at the same time checked out the ground floor, especially the stairs. Entrances and exits were important. The stairs actually kept on going down. She wondered what was downstairs. In the lift, there was a button marked B for Basement. So she pressed it and headed downwards. The doors shuddered open, and she found herself staring at another entrance lobby — the back entrance to the building — and another guard, who was staring at her. She smiled at him.
“Pressed the wrong button,” she called, before pushing the button for level 2. It took a moment longer for the doors to close. She saw two gray-liveried drivers coming into the lobby. Their cars were parked just outside the doors. Now she remembered. She’d walked around the back of this building before. There was a slope down from street level to the back entrance, and on this slope the chauffeurs left their cars while they waited for their ministers or other “important people” to finish their meetings. So: back entrance, front entrance, two lifts and one set of stairs. She nodded to herself.