by Monica Belle
The train had been filling up as she read, with a typical assortment of complete strangers, Darcy, Mr Brown and Hovis Boy at King’s Lynn, the Grey Man and the Tramp at Downham Market, Miss Scarlett and the Devil at Ely. By then only a few free seats remained, and the Devil excused himself politely as his hip bumped against Laura’s. She murmured something in reply and shut her book, embarrassed by the thought of him reading it out of the corner of his eye while she enjoyed the horrid thrill of discovering what Lord Jasper planned for Evangeline.
Instead, she let her thoughts drift, thinking of how much the Devil resembled Lord Jasper in her imagination, which presumably meant that she’d subconsciously connected the two. It was easy to go further with the idea. Darcy was the perfect model for Mark Frobisher, and Miss Scarlett perhaps not unlike the chaperone who might have been bribed to allow Evangeline to give her the slip. The only one remotely like the Bulgarian chief was Mr Brown, and he needed a darker complexion and rather more hair, including a large and bushy moustache, while he was really too dull to fit in with Laura’s fantasies in any case.
She was still in a daydream when the train pulled in at Cambridge and as she walked to work, but was brought suddenly down to earth by the sight of Mr Henderson standing beside his company Mondeo in the car park at EAS. She ducked down to check her appearance in the wing mirror of a convenient 4x4, only to end up blushing as she realised it was occupied by an elderly woman with an expression of carefully cultivated disapproval. As she approached Mr Henderson she wished she’d spent a bit more time on her hair, gone for another suit, higher heels, a splash of colour somewhere and, most especially, the seamed stockings that always earned her one of his approving nods but cost the earth, were a pain to put on and seemed to ladder at a single glance. He clearly agreed.
‘Not quite the style I’d have expected today, Laura. Look smart, look smart, that’s my motto.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘Well, we shall just have to do our best. This is an important contract, Laura, not just for the company, but for me personally. Land this one and there’s every chance I’ll be head of marketing this time next year. I need you to be one hundred and ten per cent behind me.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Laura got into the Mondeo, wondering how it would be possible to be one hundred and ten per cent behind anybody, unless it involved having a bit sticking out to one side or at the top, which in Mr Henderson’s case would have been impossible for her and most other people. She had at least got the relevant papers together, and began to go through them as he pulled out of the car park, heading east on the Newmarket Road.
Mr Henderson had begun on another of his pet peeves, other road users, who he assumed were all out merely to pass the time of day, while he alone had important business. Laura had heard it all before and made the appropriate comments at the appropriate junctures, meanwhile working through the order in which to present the virtues of their 24,000 volt SF6 switchgear system. Mr Henderson knew it by heart, but would expect the papers handed to him at exactly the right moments and in the right sequence, thus demonstrating efficiency. Only when he’d got up to speed on the duel carriageway did he turn back to the task in hand.
‘The meeting is at Setchal Manor.’
The name meant nothing to Laura, but she responded politely. Presently he turned north, into the flat fen country, and again, following the instructions of his satnav down a narrow straight lane raised above the level of the fields. After a mile the scenery changed to carefully landscaped ridges and hollows set with clumps of trees, small lakes, bunkers and carefully manicured greens. Mr Henderson gave a satisfied nod, stating the obvious.
‘A golf club.’
‘Yes.’
‘An expensive one, too, unless I’m greatly mistaken. This Mr Drake has taste.’
‘I hope he doesn’t expect us to play.’
‘Nothing was mentioned, but if he does, we’ll have to. Be prepared for the unexpected, Laura.’
It was another of his pet maxims, and one she’d always felt was particularly silly. After all, if you had prepared for something then it wasn’t really unexpected, while it was impossible to prepare for everything unless you were going to carry around an impossible amount of stuff, including, in this case, a full set of golf clubs. Not that it would have done her much good, as her sole experience of golf was being told off by a man who looked like a retired Colonel, while enjoying a hasty fumble with an ex-boyfriend on the links near Cromer.
Setchal Manor was a large house of red brick and flint, fronted by mature cedars and a weather-beaten stone colonnade, all of which gave it an air of prestige and made Laura feel small and nervous. An impressive set of double doors stood open, exposing a smaller, glass set within and the reception area beyond. Mr Henderson announced them and they were shown into the bar, a great panelled room hung with trophies and boards listing past luminaries of the club from a date well back in the nineteenth century.
Mr Drake was already there, a man even taller than Mr Henderson, also younger and with an open yet assertive manner Laura found simultaneously appealing and intimidating. His PA was worse, a Miss Manston-Jones, whose public school accent, tailored clothes and air of friendly condescension gave the impression that she was really only there because Daddy thought it would do her good to mix with the proles for a while.
Despite feeling well out of her depth, Laura did her best to remain businesslike and efficient, or at least to look businesslike and efficient. That meant following Mr Henderson’s rules, which included never refusing a drink from a client. After two large gin and tonics she was feeling a little more confident and a lot less steady, neither of which helped when Mr Drake made the suggestion she’d been dreading all morning.
‘I think that takes care of the business end of things. How about nine holes before lunch?’
Mr Henderson responded without batting an eyelid. ‘An excellent idea.’
Laura knew better than to object, but clung to the hope that she and Miss Manston-Jones might not be expected to play. After all, they were hardly dressed for the part, in tight skirts and heels, with Miss Manston-Jones’ skirt inevitably that little bit tighter and her heels that little bit higher. The hope was short lived. Mr Drake drained his Scotch before adding a fresh horror to the experience as well as dashing her hopes.
‘How about fifty pounds a hole, just to make it interesting? No handicap, and that goes for the girls, too.’
Mr Henderson responded with another favourite line.
‘I’ve never turned down a bet yet.’
‘That’s what I like to hear. We’ll get changed then, and meet up at the first tee. I take it you brought something casual?’
‘Never without it.’
Laura reached a decision. It was better to be ticked off by the boss immediately than make a complete fool of herself, lose him several hundred pounds and then get ticked off.
‘I’m afraid I haven’t. I didn’t know we’d be playing.’
‘Be prepared for the unexpected, Laura.’
Miss Manston-Jones had stood up.
‘Don’t worry, I expect I can find you something.’
As she spoke her eyes had flicked up and down Laura’s body, a survey she seemed to find amusing, to judge by her faint smile. Laura soon found out why. She’d been telling herself that their figures were similar, but the white slacks she was given proved at least a size too small, making it difficult to wriggle her bottom into them and leaving her deeply conscious of her rear view as they walked out onto the links. Mr Henderson made one of his mildly ambiguous remarks.
‘Glad to see you found something, Laura. You’ll do very nicely like that, I’m sure.’
He had held out a club to her as he spoke, leaving it open as to whether he meant she’d do nicely at golf or for their visual entertainment in between strokes, and as usual Laura was left wondering if it wasn’t just her imagination. Even if it was, she couldn’t agree with him, as she was certain she wa
sn’t going to do well no matter how she was dressed.
Both men had bags of clubs, and Laura felt her heart sink further as Miss Manston-Jones made a confident selection. She’d obviously played before, and when she hit her ball it flew arrow straight and over halfway down the fairway. Doing her best to feign confidence, Laura went through the same ritual, selecting a ball, noting the number on her score card, and balancing it on a tee, where it stayed after her third attempt. Standing back, she gave the club an experimental swing, which felt surprisingly good. Sure that she could hit the ball a reasonable distance and in more or less the right direction, she stepped forwards a little, braced herself and swung the club down as hard as she could, sending the ball backwards about three feet. Miss Manston-Jones was trying not to snigger as she spoke.
‘Let me show you how to stand.’
Laura stood aside, feeling helpless as the other woman quickly teed the ball up a second time, then demonstrated the correct stance.
‘You need to place your feet about shoulder width apart, with your knees bent slightly so that your weight is evenly distributed between your heels and the balls of your feet, and far enough back so that you’re comfortable with the clubface positioned directly behind the ball. Try it.’
Laura nodded doubtfully and attempted the stance, immediately failing to meet Miss Manston-Jones’ approval.
‘No, no. The ball should be midway between your feet.’
Laura tried again, painfully conscious that both men were looking on with obvious amusement. Again Miss Manston-Jones was unsatisfied.
‘No. Let me show you.’
Miss Manston-Jones stepped close behind Laura, pressed against her as she demonstrated how best to hold and swing the club. Laura did her best to concentrate on what she was being told and not on the fact that had either man been in the same position as Miss Manston-Jones it would have left what was between his legs pressed firmly against the over tight seat of her slacks. At last the other woman seemed satisfied and stepped back.
‘Now try.’
Laura swung again, doing her best to follow instructions. This time her club hit the ball, sending it high in the air to fall at the edge of the fairway slightly less than half as far down as the others. Miss Manston-Jones gave a firm nod.
‘Not bad at all, for a beginner.’
A grateful smile forced itself onto Laura’s face in defiance of a deeper urge to plant one muddy shoe hard against the seat of Miss Manston-Jones’ slacks.
The game began, for Laura, a long series of embarrassments. Not only did Miss Manston-Jones insist on correcting her at every opportunity, usually with physical assistance, but her ball seemed to be possessed by a particularly malicious gremlin with a taste for sand, water, trees and long grass. Despite Mr Henderson’s best efforts they lost hole after hole, until Mr Drake finally inflicted the final humiliation by offering to scrap the bet.
Laura declined, adopting her stance for the seventh hole with a new determination, her muscles tense, her legs well braced, fired with aggression as she swung her club high and brought it down with a crack that sent the ball down the fairway on a perfect line, to bounce twice and land on the green no more than a yard from the hole. Thoroughly pleased with herself, she turned to receive the adulation she was due from the others, only to find all three of them looking at her, but not her face. Miss Manston-Jones’ raised a finger.
‘Laura, I think you ought to cover yourself behind. Your trousers have split.’
Laura spent the rest of the meeting flushing pink at every look from either Mr Henderson or Mr Drake. Both had thought her accident highly amusing, despite superficial attempts at sympathy. Miss Manston-Jones had been little better, helping Laura as best she could but with laughter in her voice even after they had changed once more. Most galling of all, when they gathered in the dining room she discovered that the incident had helped create camaraderie between the two men at her expense, which enabled Mr Henderson to leave with the coveted contract in his briefcase and his face set in what Laura considered a thoroughly fatuous grin.
As they drove back he spoke of his promotion, now considered in the bag, and hinted that as PA to the head of marketing she could expect an increment in her own salary. Laura gave an absent-minded thanks, wondering if she’d even have the nerve to stay on at all when the story of what had happened that morning was sure to have circulated around the entire company within days, if not hours. Mr Henderson was known for his fund of funny stories, often at the expense of his colleagues, and yet there had to be at least a chance of persuading him to keep quite. Asking couldn’t make the situation any worse.
‘Um … Mr Henderson, I’d be very grateful if you don’t tell anybody what happened this morning.’
He laughed.
‘I bet you would! Don’t worry, you can count on my discretion.’
He’d reached out as he spoke, and for one moment she thought he was going to place his hand on her knee, only for him to change gear instead. Laura let out her breath to dispel the sudden tension, wondering if the gesture had been innocent, or a hint that some little favour would be needed to ensure her silence. He said nothing more, instead starting to explain the work she would need to do in support of the order they’d secured. Laura relaxed, sure that she was being unfairly suspicious and that both his subtly ambiguous remarks and the implication of the gesture he’d just made were no more than the products of her over-active imagination.
Once back at EAS she was kept busy liaising with other departments to organise the work they had brought in and writing up Mr Henderson’s report to his line manager. It was nearly five o’clock before she’d finished, and she opened Outlook Express in the hope that there would be no emails that needed attending to before she went home. There were only four in all, one from Brian, the company humorist, with a series of jokes about different farm animals changing light bulbs, two queries from colleagues she was able to answer immediately and without difficulty, and a fourth, from somebody called simply The Controller, which she nearly deleted as spam before curiosity got the better of her. Clicking on it, she brought the message window up to reveal a single line. WEAR STOCKINGS TOMORROW.
Laura stared at the message, possibilities flicking through her mind: first that it was merely spam after all, then that it was somebody playing a joke on her, which almost certainly meant that Mr Henderson had broken his promise, and finally that it might be from Mr Henderson himself, as the opening gambit in a game of blackmail and seduction. Immediately angry, she called up the message source, reading carefully though the data to see if she could shed any further light on the message.
It certainly wasn’t from Mr Henderson’s normal address, or anybody else’s within EAS, but that meant very little. He, or anybody else, could have used an anonymous server, thus covering their trail in case she complained. That made it seem likely that it was Mr Henderson, and that her suspicions had been right all along, with him merely waiting his chance before making his move. She rose, determined to confront him, only to sit down again. He would simply deny it, and she had no proof. The accusation would annoy him, whether he had sent the message or not, and he would then undoubtedly tell everybody about her splitting her slacks, making her the laughing stock of the office. She could already imagine how much fun Brian would have, and they’d never got on.
After a moment’s hesitation she deleted the message, then consigned it to oblivion, telling herself that whoever had sent it couldn’t possibly know she’d read it first. She shut her computer down and began to tidy up, all the while with the incident preying on her mind. As she walked to the station she was trying to work out who could have sent it, why, and what she could do. There seemed to be three main options.
The message might simply be from a joker, a random pervert who didn’t even know her, or some chancer, in which case it was best ignored and there would be no consequences.
It might be genuine, in which case she could ignore it and hope that whoever had sent it gave up, w
hich was the sensible option but almost certainly meant she’d never catch him.
It might be genuine and she could do as she was told, pretending to go along with him so that she could catch the bastard. That would be highly satisfying, and there was no denying her curiosity, but the idea of putting on stockings at the command of some unknown man gave her an all-body hot flush compounded of indignation, shame and something else, to which she was very definitely not going to admit.
3
AS SHE RODE the train back towards King’s Lynn, Laura found it impossible to concentrate on her book. It should have been a good part too, with Lord Jasper tying Evangeline to the branch of a tree with her hands above her head for some unspecified fate, only for her to be rescued in the nick of time once more. Normally her fertile imagination would have provided a dozen ways to specify the heroine’s fate, leaving her in the state of arousal and anticipation in which she liked to keep herself for the evening. Now it was impossible, with reality intruding no matter how hard she tried to concentrate.
Nothing in the message had suggested any real threat, yet she found a new comfort in Smudge as she walked him along the river and she made doubly sure her door was locked. Simply ignoring the message was clearly not an option, and as she ate the Chinese meal she had treated herself to in order to compensate for a thoroughly bad day, she found herself thinking about it once again, but in terms of the sort of crime one of her favourite detectives might have been called on to solve.
Mr Henderson was definitely her prime suspect. He liked stockings, and seemed to fancy her, which supplied his motive, while he knew her work email and might feel he had a hold over her, which supplied his means. The only evidence against him was that in four years as her boss he had never actually made a move on her.
Everybody else at work, quite a few friends and numerous clients knew her work email, so that wasn’t much help, but the message had at least implied that whoever had sent it knew she hadn’t been wearing stockings that day. Mr Henderson had known, because it had been chilly enough on the golf course for her to want to keep her tights on under the now ruined slacks, so he’d seen. It was just as well she had too, because otherwise he and Mr Drake would have been treated to a view of her knickers, which showed a large pink teddy bear mooning and had ‘A Bear Behind’ written across the seat.