The Glass Ceiling

by Anabel Donald

  I whistled. Full marks. That meant science/maths, I supposed, but it also meant she was bright. Maybe very bright. ‘What is she doing with herself, then? Staying in bed?’

  ‘Not exactly. She isn’t going home either. She doesn’t find her foster parents very – congenial. It’s a pity. They’re a very stable, caring, politically sound family.’

  ‘So what is she doing?’

  ‘Sleeping rough round Paddington, and – er —’

  ‘Working the streets?’

  ‘No. Working in libraries.’

  Pause. Mary looked at me with what would have been an appealing gaze if she’d had a better skin. As it was it came out as the ‘before’ shot of a skin lotion ad. ‘She’s a one-off, Alex. Like you were. Give her a hand. For old times’ sake.’

  I didn’t think Mary and I had had the sort of old times that you did things for the sake of. I thought our old times had been the kind that you bolt from, and keep running. But Nick Straker sounded OK to me, and I’d got used to an assistant. ‘You realize I work as a private investigator, some of the time?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Your assistant Claudia told me. Nice girl.’

  ‘She is . . . I wouldn’t have to pay a salary? Or a National Insurance stamp?’

  ‘No, and I’ve arranged for a small grant from the Emergency Fund for expenses, and for insurance to cover your employer’s liability. I’ve brought the forms for you to sign.’

  ‘Have you told Nick about it? What does she think?’

  ‘She didn’t object . . . I’ve brought a summary of her file. What I think you should know.’

  ‘Has she attempted suicide?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever been violent?’

  ‘No. Some minor self-mutilation . . .’

  ‘Does she use drugs?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘You needn’t give me her file, then. She’ll tell me what I need to know.’

  Mary hesitated. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said finally.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She doesn’t actually – communicate easily. She finds it a challenge to – express herself.’

  Mary was guilty. She’d retreated into empathy-speak. I washed down my last mouthful of cream cake with a gulp of coffee. ‘Cut the crap, Mary. Does she talk?’

  ‘Well – no.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘There’s – some confusion about that. We think she may talk to her peers, occasionally, and to people on the street. She supports herself by begging. There’s nothing organically wrong with her. She spoke normally until two years ago.’

  ‘What happened two years ago to silence her?’

  ‘Her mother died. She was taken into care.’

  Mary was watching me anxiously, waiting for me to turn Nick down. I wasn’t going to. Claudia had talked non-stop; a silent assistant would be a welcome change, and it was only two weeks, after all. And Mary had tried, with me. She was a trier. You have to acknowledge them, even if they’re wrong-headed, even if, I realized with insight I didn’t particularly relish, their trying only earns them contempt because the objects of their efforts resent them.

  Maybe I’d misjudged Mary. Maybe she was an honest, good-hearted, competent woman who spent her life shovelling other people’s shit. And maybe she’d done a good job on me, even though I liked to think I’d done it all myself.

  Well, now she was handing me a spade; last chance not to take it. Say no, Alex. Do the sensible thing.

  ‘Where is she now?’ I said.

  ‘Waiting for us in McDonald’s, up the road.’

  Chapter Four

  Nick was tallish – about five-eight – with narrow hips, a flat chest and long legs, as far as I could see under her layers of sleeping-rough clothes. She was probably half-Chinese: her hair was very dark and straight, what was left of it. One of her minor self-mutilations was hair-cutting, or tugging, or both. Most of the top of her scalp was bare, but the lower fringe that she’d overlooked or was saving for a rainy day said ‘Asian’. So did her long, narrow, opaque, inexpressive eyes. Her skin was pale and her features nondescript apart from a long slightly squashed-looking nose. She carried with her four bulging plastic bags and a powerful smell.

  We walked home from the Queensway McDonald’s in silence. I hadn’t looked back, but I’d have bet Mary watched us anxiously until we were out of sight. I hadn’t offered to help Nick with her bags and they were clearly heavy, but she walked vigorously, and easily kept up with me. She didn’t talk; I didn’t talk. I was thinking. I don’t know what she was doing.

  By the time we reached the flat I’d replanned the day to incorporate an assistant. Peter was on the sofa, watching the rugby, yelling. They were enthusiastic yells. Perhaps this was a match the Lions won. He made a gesture towards the remote control, but I said, ‘Keep watching. Nick, Peter. Peter, Nick, Nick’s my new assistant.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Peter, his eyes flicking over her, his nostrils involuntarily flaring at the smell. She didn’t look back at him: odd. Most women did. It wasn’t just his body, though that was well above average. It was probably his eyes. They’re an unusual cream sherry colour and they look alert, amused and responsive.

  I took her through to the kitchen. ‘The bathroom’s upstairs,’ I said. ‘Take a towel from the airing cupboard. Washing-machine over there. D’you have any clean clothes?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘OK, I’ll find you some. Jeans and a sweatshirt do you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What’s your bra size?’

  She put down the bags, fished a notebook and pencil from the pocket of her long black Oxfam-shop cardigan, and wrote I don’t wear one, usually.

  She could spell ‘usually’. She could punctuate. And she went upstairs to run a bath, so she could take a hint. Nearly my dream employee.

  I went downstairs to my friend Polly’s flat to get the gear for Nick. Polly’s about her height – taller than me – and she wouldn’t mind me raiding her cupboards. Besides, she was away in Hong Kong for three months, so she wouldn’t know.

  When I got back with a pair of Naf-Naf jeans and a black sweatshirt, Nick was sitting on a chair in the living-room shrouded in a towel, and Peter’s eyes were flicking between the television screen and what he could see of her legs. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said. He waved his left hand in a mock salute and Nick vanished upstairs. I followed her, gave her Polly’s clothes and some pants and socks of mine, and said, ‘Have you put your clothes in to wash?’

  She nodded.

  ‘OK. See you downstairs in a bit.’

  The living-room was quiet, the television blank. Peter was crashing about in the kitchen.

  I hoped he’d stay there for as long as it took me to listen to the two messages on the answering machine. The first, from Jordan, I fast-forwarded. Nick could transcribe it later. The second was from Barty. When I heard his voice I switched it off. I couldn’t bear to listen. But I couldn’t bear not to listen either . . . I switched it on again.

  ‘Hello, Alex. I’ve got your watch. Let’s meet. Give me a call.’

  Winner of the Noncommittal Prize. I’d call him later. Maybe.

  I wasn’t going to miss my twelve o’clock appointment, because it looked like money. It was with a solicitor, in a brasserie off the Strand. Presumably personal business of his, since otherwise he’d have met me at his office, but a solicitor nevertheless.

  By the time I left the flat I’d given Nick enough to do to keep her busy. Some of it would be much easier if she talked – to other people, not to me – but I reckoned that she would, without me listening.

  This appointment, I arrived first. The brasserie was empty – only just opened for the day – heavy dark wood panelling, brass fittings around the booths and at the bar, and two slim dark young French waiters looking sour and unwelcoming in a booth at the back.

  I sat down near the front, ignored the waiters who were ignoring me, and amused myself by guessin
g what Adrian Trigg, solicitor, would look like. I’d worked for one of his partners three months back. The partner had looked like a well-presented pig with dolphin overtones.

  Trigg arrived ten minutes late – the time it took for one of the waiters to slouch over to my table to take the order – and he wasn’t a pig or a dolphin, he was a horse. In his early forties, tallish, in a formal dark suit with a long equine face, sandy hair and large protruding brown eyes with lots of whites showing round them, like a racehorse about to bolt. He was panicked, by me or by the situation. He poised his bum on the seat as if for quick escape and ordered, distractedly, a cup of chocolate, as if he hated chocolate but it was the only thing he could think of, and then took out a cigar-case and offered me one.

  I refused. Then, belatedly, he said,‘You’re Alex Tanner, I suppose. I’m Adrian Trigg. Henry Plummer recommended you. He said you were discreet.’

  ‘I am. Relax, Mr Trigg. I’m a tomb. Nothing you tell me will go any further.’

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I gave up cigarettes two years ago, but I’m still working on cigars. One a day, that’s what I’m down to.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Very important to take care of yourself. I keep fit. I play squash twice a week, and spend some time on the weights.’

  ‘Right.’

  He looked round, saw the waiters were out of earshot, and lit a cigar. His hands were shaking. ‘It seems so disloyal,’ he said.

  ‘Are we talking about your wife?’ I tried.

  ‘It’s because I trust her that I want to know,’ he said. ‘If I didn’t trust her, then I wouldn’t be surprised, d’you see what I mean?’ And then, realizing that I’d mentioned his wife first, he looked at me suspiciously.

  ‘A guess,’ I said soothingly. ‘Trust me.’

  He crossed his legs, hitching up the cloth of his trousers so they didn’t bag, revealing a pair of expensive black silk socks. His black shoes also looked expensive, and were shined to a high gloss. He wasn’t an attractive man, at least not to me, but he was presentable, well-mannered, a partner in a top firm of solicitors: a classic meal-ticket for a moderately ambitious, conventional woman.

  ‘Tell me about the problem.’

  ‘It’s Tuesday evenings. And the telephone call. And the shopping,’ he blurted, and then paused while his chocolate and my coffee arrived.

  I was making notes. ‘The telephone call?’

  ‘She was talking on the phone . . . I came in . . . she rang off.’

  ‘Did you ask her who she was talking to?’

  ‘Well, no . . . It would have looked as if . . .’

  ‘As if you wanted to know,’ I said. ‘Which you did.’

  ‘As if I didn’t trust her.’

  ‘Which you don’t, completely, otherwise you wouldn’t have hired me.’

  ‘We’ve always been so— It’s been perfect. Always. It’s been perfect. I never knew what she saw in me, but from the first time we met – she said it was love at first sight, for her too. We just knew, both of us.’

  It sounded more recent than I’d have guessed, for a man his age. ‘When did you meet her?’

  ‘Not quite six years ago.’ He produced his wallet from his inside pocket and passed me a photograph. Blonde wife, twentysomething, pretty and slim in a swimsuit by a pool: three blond boys, four three two, in tiny swimsuits and happy smiles.

  ‘Your pool?’

  ‘Yes . . . We have a weekend place in Sussex. Isn’t she perfectly beautiful?’

  ‘Lovely. Your children?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Charming children.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, but with less emphasis. A wife man, not a son man.

  ‘And apart from the telephone call, what else are you concerned about?’

  ‘She goes out on Tuesday evenings. For about two hours.’

  ‘Have you asked her where she goes?’

  ‘Yes. She was . . . coy about it. She says women have secrets. But we have no secrets, none. This will probably sound very old-fashioned to you, and perhaps it is, but we have a traditional marriage. I earn the money, she looks after the home. She has no money of her own, you see, so I give her an allowance, and she always accounts to me for how she spends it. I don’t ask her to, she says she wants to. That’s how open we are with each other. Until now.’

  The Triggs’ traditional marriage didn’t sound a bag of laughs, I thought, but I tried to reassure him. ‘Only saying “women have secrets” doesn’t sound very sinister. If she was meeting a lover, she’d lie. Make up a story for you.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ he said, pathetically encouraged.

  ‘Probably,’ I said. Unless she wants you to know, I added to myself. ‘What does she wear?’

  He looked at me blankly. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘When she goes out on Tuesday evenings. Does she dress up? Take special care with her appearance?’

  ‘She always takes great care with her appearance,’ he said repressively. ‘She always looks absolutely perfect.’ I’d leave it, for the moment. ‘And the shopping? You mentioned shopping.’

  ‘Yes. Twice now, I’ve come into our bedroom when she was unpacking shopping bags, and I got the impression she was hiding something.’

  ‘What kind of shopping bags?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘From Harrods? From Sainsbury’s? From the off-licence?’

  ‘Oh, I see . . . No, Arabella doesn’t use plastic bags. The environment . . . She uses straw baskets. We brought them back from our honeymoon in Mexico.’

  ‘What size were the packages?’

  ‘She didn’t let me see.’

  I sipped at my coffee, which was excellent. I didn’t want to take his case, which looked like the most predictable of sad domestics. It wouldn’t take long to wrap up so I couldn’t bill for much; he’d associate me with his humiliation and I could whistle for any more work from him.

  ‘Mr Trigg, why don’t you talk to her? Just ask her.’

  ‘I can’t. I can’t . . . I’ll pay you double your usual fee. Miss Tanner I want a woman to do this. I don’t want . . . to expose her, do you see? I just want to know. She’s considerably younger than I am. She’s very innocent. I wouldn’t even be angry with her. I’d be hurt, of course, but – I just want to know.’

  Chapter Five

  So we did a deal. I’d find out where his wife went on Tuesday evenings, and let him know. He’d pay me a flat rate for the job, plus expenses: a good rate since I reckoned the whole thing plus report would be maybe a day’s work.

  It left me with a bad taste in my mouth on the tube home. Adrian Trigg came over as Mr Would-Be-Ideal Husband, a bit narrow, a bit of a romantic, very reliable; but I’d only talked to him for half an hour. Marriages are a mystery. I didn’t want to be involved. But I was touting for hire and he’d hired me to do something which was harmless, on the face of it.

  I decided not to think about it until I had to, on Tuesday night.

  I got back to the flat at one-thirty to be greeted by the clatter of the word-processor keyboard. Peter must have gone out; a cleaner, smarter Nick was typing up the final notes on my latest piece of television work, screening interviews of Real People who’d applied to take part in a projected new game show. I’d been interviewing for two days in a hotel in Bournemouth, seen over seventy candidates, and managed to find eight possibles. The rest had been too Real for television.

  She stopped when I came in, and turned to face me. She didn’t smile but the muscles in her jaw twitched and I took a smile as read. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Want some lunch?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Sandwiches do you?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Come and listen to me while I make them.’

  I set to work in the kitchen. She’d have to have cheese, and like it: I’d squirrelled away supplies from the Bournemouth hotel cheeseboard. It wasn’t good but it was free.

 
She perched herself on a stool at the kitchen table and pushed a small box towards me. She’d managed my first assignment, anyway. Fifty cheap business cards: address and telephone number, plus

  ALEX TANNER INVESTIGATIONS

  Nick Straker, Assistant

  I’d thought it would please her. It probably had. ‘Do you have a handbag that isn’t a plastic carrier?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do you mind a bum-bag?’

  She shook her head.

  My last assistant had left behind her Gucci bum-bag. It was sitting on the work-surface beside the knife-block. Claudia might want it back: she wouldn’t get it. She could afford to buy twenty more. I pointed to it. ‘It’s yours. Use it for expenses money, business cards and your notebook.’

  Nick picked up the bag, examined it, pointed to the Gucci clasp and sketched a question mark in the air.

  ‘Yes, it’s Gucci.’

  She made a T with her fingers, then pointed to me.

  ‘Thank you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘No sweat,’ I said. ‘It isn’t mine and I don’t wear bum-bags . . . Coffee or tea?’

  She sketched a C. I gave her black coffee, a carton of milk and the sugar, instead of asking her how she took it. The heartwarming non-verbal communication was starting to get up my nose. I put the sandwiches on the table, sat down and said ‘Right. How much have you done?’

  It was notebook time. All of it, she wrote.

  ‘Including the autopsy on the hamster?’

  They call it a post-mortem. It’ll take maybe a day if you only want gross findings, longer if you want histology. I said gross findings to start with, it’s cheaper. We’re to ring back tomorrow.

  She passed me the receipt, from a veterinary practice just off Notting Hill.

  I was impressed. And I didn’t know what histology was. Did she? ‘What A Levels are you doing?’

  Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry. I’m going to be a doctor.

  ‘Any particular specialism?’

  Anything but a psychiatrist, she wrote. They’re all wankers.

  She could tell me about it some other time. Listening to an adolescent on her life and times was dull enough; reading it would be insupportable. And we had work to do.