The trap door clangs shut like the hatch of a submarine. I’m a mass of confusion this morning after the revelations of last night. I don’t feel steady on the steps made for smaller feet and it has zero to do with the CBD oil bitter under my dry tongue. My footsteps click-quick against the solid-hard ground, the walls of this tunnel, as usual, openly mock me like a dog that senses fear. Now they feel like they’re creeping towards me too, a brick cage that’s bound to entomb me before I reach the steel door. I know it’s my mind doing overtime, but that’s what I heard last night has done to me – trapped me in a snare I can’t cut my way out of.
I haven’t slept. How could I with my bedfellows being Michael, Dad and a funeral programme? Or did any of it really happen? Am I barking like a mad woman up the wrong tree? I reach out. Let the pads of my fingers tiptoe against the wall. Ice cold. Yes, I’m real. Last night was real. As real as Jed telling me point-blank he doesn’t know a Michael Barrington. The trouble is, I don’t know what to do.
However, I do know I owe it to Philip – to eighteen-year-old me – to find out what the hell fire’s going on. And that’s why I’ve come back to this place of buried secrets and suffocating lies. I shrug off the lingering embers of sheer shock and feel an inch or two taller because my backbone’s now straight. I know exactly how to try to find out about Michael. How he’s connected to Dad… and me.
Rachel. Rachel. Rachel. My name’s calling me again either through these stone walls or the walls of my head. I wouldn’t be surprised at the second with the night I had yesterday.
Two more spits of cannabis oil into my bloodstream help me relax, maybe a tad too much. My name spirits and floats away.
For the remainder of the morning, I observe the black digital clock on my computer.
9:30
9:55
10:25
Ready.
I leave the underneath world and head out of the trap door.
My nerves make a meal out of me, chewing and tearing at my self-control. I’ve never done this before. Sneaking about to search someone’s private office. The pursuit of the truth takes you to many shady places. For the first time, the reception area lacks its bright cleansing poise. It puts me in mind of a hospital room where a family prays their loved one won’t die. Now, all I have to do is hope and pray Joanie’s office is either closed or she’s so preoccupied with work I’ll be able to whizz by unnoticed. I’ve already figured out that Michael will be coming in later to work. Actually the more I think about it, the more it seems he’s never in the building in the mornings but arrives later on in the day.
I’m a skulking shadow on the stairs, sure of foot, single-minded in purpose.
When I reach the landing, I look over to the purple rope with the private sign that bars the way upstairs. For the first time, I notice the door behind it has a keypad and obviously I don’t have the code so there’s no way for me to gain access to what lies beyond. I give my full attention to the corridor up ahead. Creep until I reach the edge of Joanie’s office. Am I really doing this? I wonder in disbelief as I quiet my breathing. Going to rifle through anything that gives me a glimpse into Michael’s life? But how else will I discover the connection between him and Dad and Philip?
Philip.
That’s what grows the power in me to carry on. I do a three count and zip past her office like a spirit walking over her grave. Hold back against the wall. Wait. Wait. She doesn’t come, so I pivot towards Michael’s office. It’s open, just a slice between door and frame, an open invitation for me to proceed. London stares back at me through the large windows, its backdrop a sky with not a cloud in sight, the foreground a jagged, up, down, up line of historic and modern buildings.
I start with the drawers to his desk. They’re not locked. I nearly stumble back at what I find – they’re empty. Not even a pen, a notebook. I don’t understand; how can this be his office if he has nothing in his desk? Maybe he’s one of these paperless office obsessives.
A rush of disappointment hits; there’s no clue to his relationship with my dad. My search of his in tray is feverish with my desperation to unearth something – anything – that will start fitting this puzzle together. I flick through the papers I find. Frown. That’s strange. The contents of the trays have nothing to do with a management consultancy business or indeed any other business at all. They’re mostly about gardening and look like they were run off from the Net at random.
What’s going on here? Nothing in the drawers. No business documents in the trays.
Before my thoughts can dive any deeper, I still for a moment as the sound of Joanie’s lullaby-like humming floats inside. It’s so pitch perfect, so beautiful, it casts a chill within me because somehow it makes the emptiness I’m finding in this office seem so much worse.
I up my pace, moving quickly. This shell of an office leaves chill bumps pulling tight against the skin of my arms. The files I take down from the shelves almost slip through my fingers because they’re so light. I open one. Nothing in it. Another one. The same. And another. And…
‘What the hell are you doing in my office?’
The empty file slips from my hand to the floor as I twist to find Michael Barrington staring furiously at me in the doorway.
We’re both suspended in stillness. Michael and me. He appears ready to burst a blood vessel. And me… I can’t see what I look like but I imagine what he sees. A woman who looks as guilty as transparent sin. Red-handed Rachel, that’s me. What do I say? What do I do?
Think. Think. Bloody rake that brain of yours from one corner to the other and think. My mind’s as vacant and wooden as Michael’s empty desk drawers.
‘Rachel, I asked you a question.’
He marches my way, his gaze doing a cat-tail swish sweep of his office. Thank God I took time to line up the papers I found in his in tray. Shut each drawer back tight. His eyes are on me, talons clawing ready to split me apart.
A voice slices into the room from the doorway. ‘I told her to come here to find something for me.’
Joanie. Thank you! Thank you! But when I look towards the door, I’m in for a shock. It’s not Joanie.
It’s Keats.
Keats stands there, rock solid with an ‘I dare you tell me different’ expression basking on her pointy-chin face. Bandana under her chin, hands flexing by her six-shooter water bottle and mobile phone, I swear she’s going to demand Michael stand and deliver.
However, it’s not she who has the questions but him. ‘And what could you have told Rachel to get from my office?’ Each word is coated with lashings of sarcasm.
Keats doesn’t miss a beat. ‘The Foxbury summary she’s working on was missing a crucial section, the part concerning staff intersectionality and work structure, in other words redundancy, and as that’s the main thrust of her summary, I thought she needed to have it. I instructed her to see if she could find the full report in your files.’
Our boss considers her for a moment. Then stalks over to her, stopping a toes width from her space. ‘You know I run a paper-free environment in here.’
She nods. ‘I thought there might be a copy in your files. Because you do have files for a reason despite your wish to go paperless.’
Ouch! I catch my breath at her pointed response. Expect Michael to do an on-the-spot boss bawling about the reminder of who’s the CEO in town here. He doesn’t and I recall that he called her eccentric before he introduced her to me, so he must be accustomed to her straight-arrows way. It also occurs to me that Michael must have known all along she was a woman because he shows no surprise at her blatant feminine face. What’s left of my functioning brain scrolls back; ah, he never did use the pronouns he or she when he introduced us.
Michael folds his arms. ‘Next time, if I’m not around, do not enter my office. If it’s urgent, speak to Joanie, that’s why I have a PA.’ He strides towards his chair. ‘Now, I’d like to get on with my private work in my private office.’
I don’t need telling twice and rush out of there like the room’s on fire. I shiver; why did I have to use that description?
Joanie’s head is peeping out of her office, her face a portrait of confusion. ‘Is everything okay, ladies?’
Was I the only one not to suss that Keats was a she?
‘Fine,’ Keats almost snaps back, not missing a step, face straight ahead. ‘You can go back to your bottles of fizzy water and the cigarettes you sneak a puff on around the side of the building.’
Joanie’s mouth flaps south at her rudeness as Keats pulls the bandana back over her mouth. I send the older woman an apologetic shrug as I hurry past, trying to keep up with the woman who has just saved my bacon.
We reach the reception. I tell her, voice low, ‘Thank you—’
Keats rounds on me. Yanks the bandana down. ‘I don’t want your thanks. I don’t need anyone’s thanks. Got it? What I want to know is what you were doing. After work. Me and you. In a café of my choosing.’
My head’s spinning from her quick-fire delivery. I’m still reeling as she bends down and pulls the trap door that folds easily back as if it’s been waiting for our return.