On Monday morning, as Alice and Jinx caught the Tube to the office together, Alice realised how important her usual daily walk through the park with Agatha was for getting her headset right for the day. She couldn’t fault Jinx, who’d rallied around and had been the perfect host, but Alice felt crumpled and worried in a way she couldn’t shake.
Matters soon went from bad to worse. She left three increasingly irate messages for Mr Mantis, who wasn’t picking up his phone, requesting his lawyer’s details, but she heard nothing back. Her own insurance company was equally unhelpful, a bored woman putting her on hold for ages, only to then tell her she’d have to wait in a queue for the claims department, who promptly dumped Alice into another automated system, which spat her right back out at the start of the loop. Three quarters of an hour later, and Alice was ready to smash the phone against the desk.
Marching into the reception to try and calm herself down, she found Helly chewing the end of her pen, reaching the tail end of the list of potential housekeepers for the Messents that Alice had given her earlier.
‘ … moved to the States …’ Helly was muttering out loud, crossing another name off. ‘ … just had a baby …’ She ran a red line through the next name too. ‘ … joined a rock band …’ With a resigned flourish, Helly struck off the last name on the list.
‘What, little Mary Dawes?’ Alice could hardly believe what she’d just heard, picturing Mary. She still remembered her acting like a frightened mouse when the family she’d been placed with had invited her to Royal Ascot and Jinx had had to lend her a hat.
‘They’re called Wobbly Gristle, apparently. Drum and bass,’ Helly said. ‘Oh, and before you ask, Calista Stubbs is on a yacht with her family in the Bahamas, so she can’t fill in either.’
Helly knew Alice too well. She had just been about to suggest Calista, even though she’d not done any real work for them in years.
So that was it. They’d gone through every single one of their reserve list and still had no one. Right on cue, the phone rang. And Alice knew, just knew, on a day like today, just who it was going to be.
‘Hello, The Good Household Management Agency,’ Jinx said, before frowning and clamping her hand over the receiver.
‘Let me guess … Madame Messent?’ Alice said.
‘Close.’ Jinx pulled a face. ‘Thérèse Clement, actually. Her personal assistant.’
‘OK, put her through.’
Alice marched back into her office. She’d break the bad news herself.
‘Hello, Thérèse, Alice Beeton here,’ she said, picking up the phone, feeling some sense of relief, at least, that she wasn’t dealing directly with Madame Messent.
‘The replacement for Enya? Where is she?’ Thérèse cut straight to the point, her tone positively oozing stress. ‘We need her here already. We have to leave this afternoon.’
‘Oh, right, well, we have been working on it, only—’
But Thérèse wasn’t listening. ‘And already the monies have been transferred to your account.’
‘But we still have to find the right person …’
‘You’re saying you haven’t?’
‘No, but …’
‘You said your agency would provide someone. Tout de suite. Those were Madame’s exact words. And, yes, you agreed. You said it would not be a problem.’
Madame Messent had said tout de suite, but Alice hadn’t thought she’d meant it literally. She’d assumed she’d still have a few more days to make this right.
‘You assured her your agency was to be trusted,’ Thérèse snapped.
‘Yes, and of course we are, but—’
‘Très bien,’ Thérèse said, ‘because a reputation like yours, I’m sure can be broken just as quickly as it can be endorsed.’
Alice felt her cheeks burn at the threat.
‘I shall expect the new housekeeper here by three.’
Then the line went dead. Not even a bloody au revoir.
Alice slowly put down the phone.
‘Wow,’ called out Jinx, who Alice now realised had been eavesdropping on the other line. ‘What a total and utter chienne.’
Alice’s phone pinged and a quick glance at its screen confirmed a sizeable deposit had just hit her banking app. A lifeline from the Messents. Meaning so long as she did supply a housekeeper, she could still afford to advance herself her salary so that her loan repayment wouldn’t bounce.
In the kitchen, Jinx was stabbing the remains of the frozen tiffin dejectedly with a knife.
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘We’re well and truly snookered.’
‘Let’s all calm down a minute,’ Alice said.
‘We’ve been through everyone. There’s no one to send,’ Helly said.
‘I was thinking …’ Alice began, twisting her lips, Mrs Doulton’s mantra coming to mind again. Louder this time.
Jinx paused, the knife in her hand and her eyes narrowed.
‘Oh no. You’ve got that look on your face,’ Jinx said. ‘Out with it.’
‘Well …’ Alice paused, feeling like she was bouncing precariously on a diving board. She couldn’t even really believe what she was about to say, but what other choice was there? ‘Why don’t I go?’
‘Go? Go where?’
‘To the Messents’. As their housekeeper.’
‘You?’ Jinx asked, aghast. The knife clattered onto the counter.
‘It’s actually not a completely mad idea, you know,’ Helly told Jinx, quietly. They were both staring at Alice. ‘I mean, she can cook and clean. How hard can it be?’
Alice nodded. ‘Hard, I should imagine. But we’re out of options.’ She nodded to the whiteboard in the office. ‘And if I go in as the housekeeper, then maybe, just maybe, I can find out what happened to Enya.’
‘But didn’t your detective tell you to leave the case alone?’ Jinx asked. Alice remembered telling her this, last night over their second – or was it their third? – G and T. ‘Isn’t it all a bit of a risk?’
‘Thérèse and Madame Messent are going away, and Laura will be back at school,’ Alice reminded her. ‘Surely, it’s as good a time as any to have a snoop around that house?’
‘She’s right,’ Helly said. ‘You’re more thorough than anyone, Alice. You’re bound to spot something they’ve not.’
‘Won’t they find it weird that someone who runs an agency has now taken the job?’ Jinx asked.
‘No!’ Alice exclaimed, seeing that she’d got the wrong end of the stick. ‘I won’t be me,’ Alice said, shaking her head. ‘No, that wouldn’t be right at all.’ It’d be a complete betrayal of all the principles of their agency.
‘You mean you’re going in undercover?’ Helly asked.
‘Yes. That’s what I had in mind.’
‘They haven’t met you, the Messents, have they?’ Helly asked.
Alice thought about the agency’s website, remembering how she’d deliberately refrained from using photos of her staff. She’d used a picture of the front of the building and tastefully framed quotes from satisfied customers. A few framed quotes from Mrs Beeton’s book. And since she’d always shunned social media, Alice didn’t have a profile online. So, yes, she could potentially get away with being undercover. ‘But, actually, now I come to think of it, Thérèse and Madame Messent have heard my voice.’
‘If you go in as a housekeeper, they’ll never put two and two together,’ Helly assured her. ‘As you always say, staff are invisible.’
Jinx’s eyes were narrowed, but Alice could see she was on board. ‘She’s right. The Frogs probably think us English all sound the same, anyway. Les rosbifs, isn’t that what they call us?’
‘We’ll knock up a fake CV and cobble together some references, just like Enya did,’ Helly said. She looked at her watch. ‘There’s just about time.’
‘But … oh Alice, it’s a bit of a risk,’ Jinx said, holding her elbows and staring into her eyes. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
Alice smiled and nodded, touched that Jinx cared about her so much. ‘I’ll be fine. And anyway, it’ll get me out of your hair at the flat. It rather kills two birds with one stone, now that I’m homeless, wouldn’t you say?’ And besides, Alice thought, what other choice did they have? ‘And, not to put too fine a point on it, you heard the woman. She’ll ruin our reputation if we don’t send someone. You know what Mrs Doulton always said about London …’
‘It’s a small bloody town, so mind your p’s and q’s!’ They laughed together.
Agatha barked excitedly, getting in on the action too. Then cocked her head to one side, as if she’d been asked a question. Alice looked from her little dog’s expectant gaze to Helly and Jinx.
‘Don’t worry. You’re coming too,’ she told Agatha.