I naively assumed he was talking about closer monitoring of my calls or, perhaps, more training. I had no idea what he really meant.
I found out to my cost on Good Friday. Not that there was anything good about it. We only had a skeleton team workingbecause, according to Rob, people’s focus wasn’t on their cavity walls at Easter. No shit, Sherlock.
Nessa had gone home to Manchester to spend the long weekend with her parents. She’d invited me too, but I was skint and CWS paid time-and-a-half on bank holidays.
I’d been surprised when Rob turned up at work, if I’m honest. But there he was, watching us through the windows of his office, as we cold-called unsuspecting members of the public who were about as likely to sign up for cavity wall insulation as they were to fly to the moon.
Rob disappeared for lunch just after noon and I half hoped he’d decide to take the afternoon off because the atmosphere was so much more relaxed when he wasn’t around. But at half past two he reappeared, and at a quarter to three he summoned me to his office.
‘Good luck,’ muttered Denise from the booth next to mine. ‘He’s spent the last couple of hours in the pub, if the fumes are anything to go by.’
‘Brilliant.’ I put down my headset, straightened my top and tramped over to his office. The blinds had been pulled down, which sent a small sliver of fear through me. But though Rob was a sleaze, everyone knew he was basically harmless. One of those smarmy guys who might look but wouldn’t dare touch. And there were half a dozen people in the call centre. I’d be fine.
I knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ he cried, full of bonhomie, which threw me for a second as I’d been expecting a bollocking for something or other.
‘You wanted me?’
‘I do. I mean, I did.’ He snickered. ‘I need you to have a look at the photocopier for me. The paper keeps getting stuck.’
‘I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. I don’t really know how it?—’
‘Oh, come on, a bright girl like you? I’m sure you can work it out.’ He smiled, but his eyes remained cold, and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
I sent Denise a silent plea for help as Rob opened the door, dipped his head and said, ingratiatingly, ‘Please, after you.’ But she was on another call, her focus on her screen, her pen tapping a tattoo on the pad of paper on her desk. My gaze darted round the room looking for anyone else whose help I could enlist but, like Denise, they were all too busy trying to flog cavity wall insulation to notice me.
I could feel Rob’s gaze on my back as he followed me down the stairs to the ground floor. Because it was a bank holiday, there was no one on reception, which added to my sense of unease. But I quickened my step and told myself to get a grip. Rob wouldn’t dare try anything on when there were people in the building. No one would be that stupid, or that arrogant.
I pushed the door to the photocopying room open with my hip and switched on the strip light. The room was small and square, with tiny windows looking out on to the half-empty car park. To the left was the photocopier, a huge, ancient Xerox that had probably photocopied its fair share of body parts at drunken office parties over the years. The opposite wall was taken up with floor-to-ceiling cupboards filled with stationery.
Rob nodded at the red light blinking on the control panel of the photocopier. ‘The error light’s on.’
‘Um, I think that means a piece of paper’s jammed?’ I bent down to check the tiny display screen. ‘I’m really not sure how to fix it. You’d have been better off asking Tom or Phillip.’
‘I didn’t want to ask Tom or Phillip,’ he said silkily. ‘I wanted you.’
24
VICTORIA
We’re not doing this for money. We’re doing it for RETRIBUTION.
The words swirl around my head for the rest of the day as I join the others by the pool, pick up my Kindle and pretend to read.
My thoughts are all over the place. If the threats were motivated by money, at least I’d know where I stand. I could negotiate with the perpetrator, buy my way out. But they’re clearly motivated by revenge, and revenge is an unpredictable beast. It’s personal, non-negotiable and totally bewildering for someone like me, conditioned to think in terms of leverage and deals, whose default response to problems is to throw money at them.
They’re also right. Iama hypocrite. I could blame my current situation on ignorance or naivety but I’d be lying to myself. I’ve been greedy and I’ve taken for granted that I’d get away with it because of my position, my status. The irony is, the higher you are, the harder you fall.
Am I about to pay the price for my hubris?
No matter which way I look at it – and I consider every single angle as I lie on the sunbed with my eyes closed, the glaringsun painting patterns on my eyelids – everything leads back to Number Twelve Claremont Crescent. Granny Aggie’s house.
Granny Aggie, my paternal grandmother, was a formidable woman who could silence a room with a single arched eyebrow. Feared and revered in equal measure, she was the undisputed matriarch of the family, a haughty, refined dowager who wore head-to-toe tweed and judged people not by their achievements or character, but by the cut of their jib.
Number Twelve is a shabby Georgian townhouse in Camberwell. Both the house and the area were once beautiful: all white stucco and leafy streets. Elegant and genteel. But over the years the house and its neighbours have fallen into disrepair, chopped up into flats and bedsits, and the neighbourhood has lost its gloss.
I was Granny Aggie’s only granddaughter and by far her favourite grandchild. On the whole, Agatha disliked boys. They were loud, boisterous and – more often than not – boorish, with few manners and even fewer things to recommend them. I, on the other hand, was a pretty, dainty child, with porcelain-blue eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion and impeccable manners. Not only that, I was the only member of the family who visited Number Twelve with any regularity. My brothers accused me of currying favour with the old harridan, but they were wrong. In Agatha, I recognised something of myself. Old-fashioned values, perhaps. Or the same flinty resolve that ran through us both.
