by Alice Castle
There was nothing for it but to give his desk a thorough search. Beth stepped back over to the blond slab of wood and slid behind it, preparing to sit in the tan leather chair. But before she got settled, she had a clever thought. She quickly jammed the door open with the wastepaper basket, just in case anyone came in from the street while she was busy snooping. That way she’d be able to hear them, sprint out again while the front door was doing its chiming thing, and more or less be back in position at her own desk in time to pretend she wasn’t up to anything.
Settling into Potter’s chair, Beth luxuriated for a moment in the plushness of the seat and inhaled the scent of very expensive leather. If she sat here all day, she’d probably be firing off reports left, right, and centre. It was the kind of chair that appealed to the inner, lurking Donald Trump in a man – or a woman, too, if she was anything to go by. But she mustn’t get distracted by fantasies of world domination. She leaned forward from the sumptuous depths and rattled the desk drawers. Locked. Of course. Why would Potter stop at two locks, when he could have more? He probably locked his briefcase, too, and for sure his iPhone would have an elaborate code, whereas Beth’s was open for anyone to snoop into. Maybe she should change that now that she had a few texts she felt less than comfortable about Ben reading, she thought suddenly with a blush.
But that was neither here nor there at the moment. The question was, how to get into Potter’s drawers, as it were. She stared in front of her. If she was a paranoid, entitled, 40-something show-off, where would she hide her keys? Given that she knew a little about the man’s modus operandi from having found his Simpkin office key hiding place, Beth pondered, drumming her fingers on the smooth, expensive, bland desk top. There was an in-tray right in front of her, bristling now with her own impressive output of reports, all neatly stapled. She lifted them out carefully, dragged the tray towards her and scanned it. Nothing there, save a broken rubber band.
She shook out The Daily Telegraph, just in case, then rearranged it back in its original folds, an annoying piece of origami. There was an A4 size, tan leather-bound desk diary, for the year they’d so nearly dispensed with but, leafing through it, she could see it was untouched. Either Potter made his appointments straight into his phone, as most people did these days, or the diary represented the true state of the firm’s business.
Wait a minute. The pen pot. It was an Orla Kiely ceramic, with an orange graphic pattern on a white background, discreetly designerish, but not enough on its own to do much against the preponderance of beige in the room. The desk key would be here, surely. Beth grabbed the pens with one hand and put them down in a neat pile, then upended the pot onto the pristine desk, unprepared for the pencil shavings that fell out everywhere, with that fine accompanying graphite dust that always drops out of sharpeners. Yuck.
With a tut, she swept the fine powder off the desk into her palm and took it over to the door to dump into the bin. Well, she’d caught Potter out in the nasty habit of sharpening pencils into his pot during quiet moments, but that was hardly a crime, or not one of the magnitude that she and Nina were looking for. What else? She looked hopefully into the depths of the neat cylinder. Had he fixed the key to the bottom with tape, maybe? That would be smart and add a James Bond touch. Nope. Aside from an old dog-eared stamp clinging to the interior, the cupboard, so to speak, was bare.
Bare. Hmm. That made her think. She looked at the desktop again, and her eye went to the diary. Why take up space with such a large one, even though it was rather beautiful and matched the chair which seemed to be his pride and joy? If you weren’t going to use it, would you really keep it on your desk for almost a whole year? Potter didn’t seem the pointless clutter type. Unless it was a present from Letty, and he had a sentimental attachment to it? The way he’d comforted his wife just now had been very touching. Beth’d been going off him more and more every day with each report she’d typed, but she had to say he definitely seemed like a caring husband. And father, helping Letty with the undoubted burden of breaking the bad news about their pet to the children.
Beth slid the diary across the desk and flipped through it again, then turned it upside down to see if anything would fall out. Nothing. But the book was surprisingly heavy. Yes, it was covered in leather, and seemed almost as well upholstered as the chair, with a lovely sponginess to the front and back that made Beth sink her fingers idly into its springy depths. She’d always wondered how they bound books like this. Was it actually foam rubber under the leather? She opened the back page to have a closer look.
There was a pocket at the back, helpfully labelled in gold tooling, receipts. The pocket bagged a little, as though it was used frequently. Her heart beat a little faster. She slid a finger in… tentatively. And felt for the bottom of the pocket. There it was, the smooth outline of a key. A very small one this time. That would fit the desk, which seemed to have a tiny lock, considering its impressive size. With a smile, Beth retrieved the key, fitted it into the lock, and turned. Now it was just a matter of guessing where Potter kept the cabinet keys. Surely he wouldn’t hide those in the tiresome way he’d done with the other two?
But, it seemed, old habits died hard. Although most burglars would probably have died of frustration before they got to this point, or merely jemmied open all the doors in their way with a crowbar, Beth, of course, was all about covering her tracks. She rapidly opened and shut every desk drawer, the last key declining to leap out at her through the perfectly ordinary mixture of staplers, hole punchers, scissors, paper, and envelopes that greeted her very disappointed gaze. Honestly, why would he even bother to lock these drawers, when their contents were ordinary enough to send anyone into a coma? And where, for heaven’s sake, would he hide the filing cabinet key? Once again, she sat and gave the matter some serious thought.
‘Where would I put this key, if I were a seriously sneaky, paranoid bastard with an inferiority complex that I’m trying to make up for with a very, very big desk?’ she pondered, asking the smooth cream walls, even addressing the Rothko, its colours quivering at her across the room.
‘Aha!’ she said, getting up from the tan embrace of the chair with a little difficulty, and speeding over to the picture. She reached up, up, and again was thwarted. The top of the frame was just out of her reach. Why did that always happen? Beth, who knew all too well that it was a height thing, pushed the thought as far away as it would go, and realised she’d have to drag her own office chair in from outside, to prove whether her hunch was right or not. No point trying to stand on Potter’s own chair – it was too cushiony, and it also felt too hefty to shift. She wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to shove it into position, and the same went for the chair she sat in for the dictation sessions. It was surprisingly solid, whereas her own chair outside, though it wasn’t exactly lightweight, did have the bonus of being on castors.
All her labours were rewarded a few minutes later, when she was on her tiptoes on her chair, as was now almost beginning to feel like standard practice. Carefully, she reached up above her head and felt along the dusty edge of the picture. Just when her heart was beginning to sink, her fingers struck gold – in key form. The final lock. She felt as though she’d been playing her part in some obscure Dungeons and Dragons-style game, and had gone through endless levels before at last winning the chalice, gold coins, diadem, or whatever.
With a much lighter heart, she pushed her chair quickly out of the office again, whacking against the bin propping the door as she passed, and turning back just in time to see the office door shutting inexorably behind her with a very final clunk. With the office key locked firmly inside. Where had she even left it? She couldn’t remember.
Beth stopped stock still, head clasped in her hands, as she desperately tried to visualise the state she’d left Potter’s office in. Was there anything that would give away the fact that she’d sat in his chair, chucked his stuff hither and thither across his desktop, rifled his drawers and, most importantly of all, discovered not one but
two of his secret keys?
Beth’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d been so carried away at her cleverness, she’d been careless.
But think. Think. What had she done? She’d emptied out the pen pot – and she’d chucked away the sharpenings, not left them on his desk. Well, it was good they weren’t still strewn all over the place – but was it bad that they were in the bin? Only if he looked in it… and would he?
Mind you, the bin itself was going to be out of place – but only a little. She’d shifted it about a foot to wedge the door. With any luck, it might have been moved back nearly to where it started by the door as it swung back. The desk diary, the in-tray, the reports. All of those she’d replaced where she found them. There was a lot to be said, some days, for being a bit on the OCD side. But wait a minute. The desk itself. It was unlocked. And the filing cabinet key she’d taken from the top of the Rothko. That was still in her hand right now. And, much worse, the office key. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember where she’d put it.
She’d unlocked the door, gone into the room, sat at the desk… had she just left it there, lying on the polished blond surface, in full view? She squeezed her eyes shut. But, try as she might, she couldn’t quite get the key to swim into focus. She tried it in various positions on the desk, but none seemed right. It was no good. It was a bit like playing that game, Pelmanism, which Ben had gone through a brief but exhausting phase of loving beyond reason. Day after day, when he’d been five or six, they’d got out the cards, shuffled them, lain them face down, and battle had commenced. They’d each turned over two, then turned them back. The aim was to remember where the pairs lay, pick them up, have another turn, and maybe sweep the board.
But it was much, much more frustrating than that, of course. It was as though Ben were jousting with himself, or more accurately, with the gaps in his memory. Sometimes, even when they were down to just a few remaining pairs, he couldn’t seem to remember which was which. As usual, she was faced with the parents’ dilemma – to help or not to help. And by ‘help’, some would say she meant cheat. But it was awful to see your child struggling, and yet know you could end their agonies. Usually, she held out. He’d have fewer agonies if he learnt how to probe his own memory. If she nudged his hand, yes, he’d be happy this one time. But he wouldn’t improve.
Now it was Beth struggling with the limitations of a mind which had never seemed so woefully inadequate. She pictured the desk, for the umpteenth time, as it had been (as far as she could recall) when she’d sat down. And how it had looked when she’d pranced off with her bright idea about the chair. Was there a difference? Was there a key-shaped anomaly left on that shiny surface for Potter to pounce on as soon as he entered the room? She just could not remember.
She was feeling a little sick now with the stress. She tried to take some deep breaths. What was the worst that could happen? Well, he could sack her immediately. And say he did, would she actually care? It wasn’t really her job. She was just keeping the seat warm for Nina, poking into things on her behalf. It wasn’t as if she loved typing reports, when it came to that. And she had a whole other job that was safe. Or was it? If he spread word that she’d been snooping, he’d damage her reputation, wouldn’t he? Maybe even get Wyatt’s to doubt her worth. And would Nina be tainted by association? She’d hate it more than anything if she got her friend sacked through her own carelessness. But Nina, small and bouncy, did seem almost as indestructible as the rubber ball she sometimes resembled. Losing her job was not in her plan; it would be a blow, there was no doubt. But she was resilience personified. Would it really take her long to find another?
Beth thought hard about this. Nina had known her by sight as someone who ferreted around, successfully, in mysteries. By this stage, was there anyone in Dulwich who’d be that surprised at the news that she was a bit nosey? She calmed down a little. Anyway, she reasoned, wasn’t it quite likely that the Rothko key was Potter’s spare? It had been dusty up there, and his Simpkin key in the mug cupboard was a just-in-case measure, too. He’d have those on his personal keyring, for sure. And it was more than possible that he could have fled the office without locking the filing cabinets.
The only thing she really had to worry about was the desk. It was not only open, but she was also sure she must have left the office key out somewhere on its surface. Before she started to hyperventilate again, Beth reasoned that today there’d been very unusual circumstances. He’d rushed out, with hardly a thought, to be in the bosom of his family at a difficult time. With any luck, he’d been doing the crossword just before, hadn’t he? And he’d been annotating her report, probably using a pen from the pot. Nothing drawer-bound there. Maybe he hadn’t used the desk drawers at all. She’d have to hope he wouldn’t really be able to remember whether he’d left them unlocked or not, when he rushed away after the bad news. Just a niggle of doubt would be enough to keep her in the clear. For now. But she wasn’t much looking forward to tomorrow morning, that was for sure.
It was with a heavy heart that she locked up the street door herself. She hadn’t quite known what to do with the hard-won filing cabinet key, now rendered useless by her thoughtless action. Should she stash it in her desk? But no. If Potter did realise he’d locked his desk, and it was now miraculously open, then he might well be curious or suspicious enough to search her work area, as she had done his. She’d take the key home and have done with it, and hope for the best with Potter’s office key.
She toiled back from Nina’s later with a heavy heart. They hadn’t really had a moment to discuss things, though the other woman had been able to tell that something had gone wrong. But Ben, perhaps now getting a little fed up with unfettered access to junk TV, junk gaming, and junk food, was a bit clingier than usual and was definitely ready to go the moment she appeared. Worst of all, Harry was finally coming over tonight, his schedule having at last allowed him a window when she wasn’t either working or asleep. Normally, she would have been thrilled, but with an attempted breaking-and-entering on her conscience – and an unsuccessful one at that – she really wasn’t feeling in the mood.
At least she didn’t have to cook. Ben had already had his quota of frozen, reheated food and appeared quite satisfied with that. He didn’t even resist bedtime much, for once. In fact, his docility was quite worrying, but she reassured herself that it was highly unlikely to last. As soon as he was off to bed, teeth cleaned, and a book selected from the teetering pile in his room, Beth nipped downstairs.
One advantage of being out all day was that the house remained fairly tidy. With only Magpie to roam around – shedding hairs wantonly, of course, but unable to shift the furniture around or do much other real damage, other than wage her long war of attrition against sofa legs and curtains – Beth could just whizz around, plumping up cushions, and everything was ready. Harry was bringing a takeaway, so she just assembled plates, glasses, and cutlery on a tray, moved that and a bottle of red into the sitting room, and turned on the telly, pressing mute on the remote just in case Ben was still awake.
She’d nipped up to switch off his light and tuck the duvet round him, marvelling as usual at the perfect fan of his lush eyelashes, so much nicer than her own, when the doorbell went.
As she ran down to answer it, she felt that flutter in her tummy that suggested that, despite everything, it was going to be a good night.
Chapter Twelve
The first thing Beth heard was Harry swearing beside her. Not a great start. She opened her eyes a chink, looked across at him, and realised the room was already light. Sitting up abruptly, she put her hand to her forehead. A little too much wine last night; she really wasn’t used to it. And other things, as well. It wasn’t just her head that was feeling a twinge this morning, she thought with a reminiscent smile.
Harry, meanwhile, was now on his hands and knees, peering under the bed.
‘Bloody sock,’ he growled.
Beth spread an arm over to the other side of t
he bed – now his side, she realised with a jolt – and felt a bump under the other pillow. She fished it out, held it aloft.
‘Looking for this?’ She couldn’t keep the triumph out of her voice.
‘Ah, you’re amazing. How do you do it?’ Harry, his shirt unbuttoned but his trousers on, snatched the sock from her hand and pinned her back down under the duvet with a long and thorough kiss.
‘Just naturally talented, I suppose.’ She could feel a smile right down to her toes now.
‘As long as you’re only looking for socks these days. Don’t want you getting into any more trouble, do we? Took years off my life last time,’ Harry said over his shoulder, putting on the sock. When the silence continued for a beat too long, he turned back to her, a frown on his handsome face. ‘Beth? That was a joke. I know you’re too sensible to put yourself in danger.’
Beth forced a smile. ‘’Course. Absolutely. I was just… miles away.’ Miles might be overstating it, but she’d been down the hill, in a certain office in Herne Hill, watching the door close on that hard-won key. Harry had been a perfect distraction last night, but now the reality of her situation was crashing in again. This could be the morning that Paul Potter discovered he had an imposter in his midst. How was he going to take it?
He was unlikely to be thrilled, that was for sure. But would she be in danger, exactly, even if he did put two and two together? Potter was a middle-class, middle-aged dad, for heaven’s sake. He wasn’t The Terminator on the rampage.