Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  Like anything about my life is healthy. I don’t say it.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I tell him. “It’s just fun. Something to dream about. And I’m planning on working my way up, maybe be a team leader one day… maybe even an admin junior… and then who knows…”

  “Right?”

  “Right,” I lie.

  “And you aren’t gonna do anything? Not when you get there? Not when you’re close enough that his seat really is there for the sniffing?”

  I take my coffee black, saving the milk for Joe’s cereal in the morning. “Anything like what?”

  Dean takes his black too. “Like stalking him. Like following the guy around until he catches on to you, and fires you, or sues you, or worse.”

  “Worse?” The thought makes me smile. “What on earth could be worse than being fired or sued?”

  “I’m being serious, Lissa!”

  His raised voice takes me aback, and I check the door for Joe. He’s still flipping those picture book pages, smiling to himself, lost in his own little world like I used to be.

  When I turn back, Dean’s pulled his phone from his pocket and he’s flipping across the screen, flipping through images I recognise from my own Google searches.

  He turns the handset in my direction, and my stomach flips but I don’t look away. I don’t need to.

  I’ve already seen it.

  Already read everything there is to read on Alexander Henley Jnr.

  “I did some digging,” he tells me, “while Joe had his nap this afternoon.”

  My cheeks burn as I check out the headline on screen.

  The legal Puppet Master pulling the strings of the dirty elite. Just who is Alexander James Henley Jnr?

  I can’t see the rest of the text, he pulls his phone away too quickly.

  Like hell it was just this afternoon. I didn’t find that crap, and I searched hard. Really hard.

  Dean’s eyes are fierce. “There’s a woman here, or there was before she retracted her comments. Said he paid her. Said he’s dangerous. That she was afraid for her life.”

  I roll my eyes. “Tabloid gossip, I’m sure. Sour grapes, maybe.”

  “And if it’s not? There’s plenty of stories, Lissa, if you dig hard enough. All retracted. All hushed up soon after. What if he is dangerous? Who knows what a guy like that’s into? He’s not like us. He’s not from our world.”

  “So, you thought you’d better fill me in now I’m up nine floors?” I shrug, sip my coffee. “I’ll probably never even get vaguely close enough to find out what he’s really into. As if a man like him is ever going to be into a little scrubber like me. Christ, Dean, are you blind?”

  I wonder how long he’s been looking up Alexander Henley. I wonder whether he sees the beauty that I see.

  I wonder if he’s saved a picture. Maybe several.

  I wonder if he knows quite which way he swings yet, and if he’s still masturbating over gay porn when he thinks I’m asleep through the wall. I wonder if he’s masturbated over Alexander Henley.

  The idea of a stash of photos makes me jealous. My phone has a cracked screen and barely any storage.

  “That’s the thing,” he says. “I think you are gonna find out what he’s into. And I don’t think you’ll stop ’til you find out.”

  I groan. “That polyester stripes don’t really turn him on, Dean, that’s what I’m gonna find out. That guys like Alexander Henley don’t date girls like me. That I’m not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough for a man like him. That’s what I’ll find out.”

  He holds up his hands. “I don’t think that, not any of that. And you shouldn’t either.”

  “Yeah, well he will. Probably.” That scratch scratch in my belly. The scratch scratch that seeing the job advertised in the paper managed to take away.

  A Saaaaa, and then a Dee deee from the living room, and I push the door open. Joe is up on his feet, a big smile on his face as he claps his hands, picture book finished.

  Dean sighs, and then he smiles, and I know it’ll be alright. I know he’ll never make me give up on my dreams, not while this little guy is depending on me to get us through this mess.

  He grabs my elbow before I go to scoop up my Joe, and his voice is just a whisper, right in my ear.

  “Henley won’t think that, I promise you. Not about you, Lissa.”

  I could kiss him. Kiss him for the way he’s looking at me, as though I’m still the girl with straight-As and a big future ahead of her.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “It’s the truth,” he whispers. “And that’s what worries me shitless. That it’s gonna be you who ends up hurt, and broken and retracting your comments when you make it a whole lot further than floor eighteen. Because you will. You will make it.”

  Hope.

  It’s a beautiful feeling.

  I shouldn’t smile, not when he’s so worried, so I pretend it’s all for Joe, and choo-choo trains, and the cruddy second-hand trainset I picked up with my first month’s wages.

  He deserves so much more than this. And I’m going to get it for him.

  If Dean really pushed me, I’d tell him I really don’t have a plan beyond floor eighteen, and I wouldn’t be lying, not technically. The plan post being up close to the area Alexander Henley spends most of his working life is hazy. More a feeling. A feeling that I’ll know what to do when the time comes. Doors opening into darkened corridors, and more doors, deeper and deeper. Like the detective novels I used to pick up from the charity shop as a kid, there were always so many breadcrumbs, a trail unfolding as you flipped the pages, and then BAM, at the end it would all come together, a sense of satisfaction as the whole picture came into view.

  That’s how I feel right now. Like I’m at the beginning of something, armed with nothing but that sense of knowing.

  Maybe it’ll be a late night. Mr Henley working late as I stumble into his office, and there’ll be a meeting of eyes, a simmering recognition in the darkened room, just him and me, and maybe I’ll tell him, tell him I’m the girl he bummed the cigarette to, the girl who was late.

  Maybe he’ll remember.

  Maybe he’ll invite me to sit down and ask me all about my life, and I’ll pull the crappy cap from my head and shake my hair loose from my hairnet, and he’ll see something in me.

  Something.

  Something he wants.

  I’m such a fool. Even the thought makes me laugh as I whizz Joe’s crappy train around the track and make the noises.

  I’m pretty sure that’s not how a run-in with Alexander James Henley, the puppet master, is going to go down. Maybe sniffing his seat and laughing about it with Sonnie will be the end of it, nothing but a crazy fixation until I find a way up and off this crappy rung on the life ladder.

  Before some asshole going thirty over the speed limit ploughed into my parents I was a girl on a mission. Determined to qualify as a criminal lawyer and run into the man who’d stolen my heart over an Insignia cigarette. It was supposed to be one hell of a different story to the way this one’s panning out.

  See, we’re from here, Joe and me. From this shitty rundown part of town. My parents too, and their parents before them. Mum and Dad worked shitty jobs they hated, struggling to make ends meet for me and Joseph. They never moaned, not once, not ever. But I was going to be different. I told them so, and they believed me.

  Lissa’s going to be a swanky lawyer, they’d say. Not like us.

  But I am like them. They kept on going, day after day, working hard, just like I’ll keep going, just like I’ll keep on working hard.

  They wanted so much better for me. For both of us.

  Our Lissa would run through a wall if there was something she wanted on the other side. She’ll never give up. She’s that kind of kid.

  I heard Mum say that once, to Mrs Manning who lived across the hallway.

  She was right.

  I wanted to step up after the accident. Wanted to hold the pieces together for Joseph,
quitting my own A-Levels and taking on my parents’ rent. I wanted to do all of this, and I did.

  I want Alexander Henley, and I’ll have him, too.

  I just don’t know exactly how.

  Yet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALEXANDER

  IT’S days like these I wish I still smoked more than one a day.

  Another last-minute fucking plea bargain as my client wrung his shaky hands in the corridor outside, and Cyril Westerton, prosecution lawyer, flapped his saggy jaw and told me my proposal was preposterous. An outrage.

  Nothing’s fucking preposterous as far as I’m concerned.

  The guy’s a joke, heading for nothing but retirement and a shitty gold watch, looking for one last case to put his name in lights. Well, it won’t be this one. Not today.

  It’ll never be one of mine.

  It’s all but signed and sealed. A tap on the wrist for my client, some damages for the victim – some cheap hooker from Soho who took his cash then filmed him getting rough with her on hidden camera. He swore she begged him for it, told him it got her off.

  As it turns out, I believed him. Not that that matters.

  My digging proved me right, at least. Bill Catterson isn’t the first guy the bitch tried to stitch up, but he will be the last.

  I’ve ruined her. Dug up the dregs on her seedy life, on the money she blackmailed from rich guys who can’t keep their dicks in their pants, on the games she plays, on her secret coke habit. On the fact she collects more STDs than I collect gemstones, and I collect a lot of fucking gemstones. Childhood habit – an increasingly expensive one.

  My client, Bill Catterson, is a sad loser whose wife now hates his guts worse than she did before.

  Once upon a time I’d have had some sympathy for the guy, but now I feel nothing but disgust. Maybe a sliver of pity.

  He knows he’s worthless today. The same as he knows he’s riddled with genital nasties, and I suspect the guy will most likely never regain enough testosterone to get his tiny little dick up ever again.

  It is tiny. I saw the fucking video. Hazard of the fucking job.

  Anyway, the guy’s broken. But he’s not in prison. Not even close.

  Jacqueline Catterson flashes me a smile, but her eyes are like spitting coals as we leave court. An air kiss and a thank you, Alexander, despite the fact we’ve never once been on first name terms, and she’s off in a plume of Dior, with her wimp of a husband trailing behind her.

  His farewell handshake is as weak as the rest of him. His hand is clammy, and I hate that. I fucking hate sweaty palms.

  I wait until he’s out of sight before I tug a handkerchief from my inside pocket. Be fucking damned if I’m wiping that guy’s grimy body fluids on my suit.

  I’m waiting for my driver when I catch sight of an even bigger loser, and now I really am craving a fucking cigarette.

  They say nicotine cravings peak three to five days after quitting. Bull-fucking-shit.

  Two years and counting, and I still think about lighting up at least twenty times a day.

  The tabloid journalist piece of shit, known only to himself as Ronald the digger Robertson – a legend in his own tiny mind – closes the distance, trailing his goofy photographer behind him as he sidles up the street, deliberately lighting up and offering me one when I’m close enough to get a waft. Wanker.

  His cigarettes are cheap, like him. Cheaper than him, and that’s saying something.

  I tap my watch. “Tardiness, Ronald, it’s not very becoming of those in the fast lane of investigative journalism to be late.”

  “Been out the back with Miss Whiplash. Poor form, Henley. She’s got little kids, you know, currently in care of Social Services now they’ve been tipped off about her unfortunate addiction. How the fuck do you sleep at night?”

  I don’t sleep at night, but I smile a triumphant smile nonetheless and offer him a wave of the hand. “No fucking comment, Robertson. Why don’t you move along to someone who has a modicum of respect for your opinion? I’m sure you’ve got reality TV wannabes tripping over themselves to flash their tits in exchange for a centre spread.”

  His beady eyes flash with hate, and it fills me with fucking joy. That’s how the loser started, interviewing nobodies about their five minutes of fame, only now he’s turned serious. Criminal investigative journalism, but Christ he stinks.

  “Think she’s gonna divorce him now?” he asks. “I heard she’s leaving town for her sister’s place.”

  That’s bullshit speculation. Jacqueline Catterson loves her husband’s money much more than she hates him, but I’ll never tell Robertson that. I’ll never tell Robertson anything. Not purely down to client confidentiality, which I am thoroughly bound by, but because I can’t stand the fucking cunt.

  “That’s the most sophisticated question in your repertoire?”

  “Just getting started, one off the cuff.” He flips out a grubby little notepad, but I’m done.

  My driver pulls up at the kerb, and I turn away as the camera flashes, obscuring my face as I clamber into the backseat of the shiny black hulk of Mercedes.

  I see her as we pull away, Miss Whiplash, real name Wendy Brown, her eyes puffy from the bad news as she teeters down the court steps in a pair of cherry-red hooker heels which really don’t match the cream cardigan she’s dug out for the occasion.

  He’s right about her kids. Packed off to Social Services. If my conscience hadn’t long been hammered into oblivion, maybe I’d care. Maybe I’d even feel sorry.

  But I’ve done worse. A lot worse.

  I know how it feels to lose your fucking kids, but life goes on. Same shit, different day. Only Wendy Brown has a chance of getting hers back, a couple of months clean and some supervised visits, and they’ll be back home, watching daytime TV while their mother fucks men for money in the room next door.

  Poor fucking sods.

  But that’s the world we live in.

  The world all around us, around every shadowy corner.

  The world that speared me and left me for dead under the heel of Ronald journalist scum Robertson himself, but we don’t talk about that. Not since my father paid him almost seven figures to keep my face out of his shitty paper.

  The city passes by the window and I’m glad of the tinted glass. Glad that nobody can see me scrub my hands with antibacterial gel, as though that stands a chance of getting Bill Catterson’s grime off me. But it won’t.

  Bill Catterson’s grime is in me, along with all the others – all the other slimy cunts I’ve been paid obscenely well to divert justice for.

  I’m full of them. Every backhanded deal, every character assassination I’ve undertaken in their name, every loophole in the law I’ve exploited to keep their records clean.

  I pull out the phone from my inside pocket.

  If I’m going to feel dirty it’ll be on my own fucking terms.

  I think it’ll be a Candice evening tonight.

  MELISSA

  FLOOR SIXTEEN IS BEAUTIFUL. Glass and chrome and thick carpet that your shoes sink into.

  My entire apartment could fit inside one of the executive toilet blocks up here, and it makes my heart pang a little, the contrast – my life and theirs.

  I wonder if they realise how lucky they are, in their smart suits and their trendy hair, kicking back during meetings, unaware that I’m waiting, watching, hovering to swoop in like a thief in the night and clean up their mess when they’re done.

  Discreet. That’s what Janet Yorkley told us. You have to be discreet.

  We really are an embarrassment, that’s obvious. We aren’t allowed to walk along the main corridors in office hours, rushing along the service passages behind the scenes, hiding out in alcoves in fear of being spotted by those so much more important than us.

  Floor sixteen has greater advantages than those obvious ones. The staffroom behind meeting suite seven is the hub of the higher floors, and it’s in there that we first met Cindy Harris, Mr Henley’s personal c
leaner. She does his office – right at the back of the eighteenth floor – and more than that, so much more that it gives me shivers, she cleans his home. His actual home.

  She loads his dishwasher, and stocks his fridge, and collects his suits from the dry cleaners on the way.

  And she changes his sheets.

  His bedsheets.

  Takes his dirty laundry from the hamper, washes and presses it and folds it neatly back in his dressing room.

  Sonnie’s face was a picture when she told us. She mouthed me a sweet Jesus and wiped her brow, and I knew then that the goalposts were moving.

  Floor eighteen is no longer our final destination.

  We’re heading for Alexander Henley’s bedroom, and it won’t be his seat we’ll be sniffing.

  Call it fate, or another breadcrumb in the tatty novel that is my life, but we got a flash of good fortune at the end of our third post-promotion week.

  Cindy likes us, and that’s lucky as hell, because we’re the first to hear her news, before it’s official, before she’s even told Janet Yorkley.

  Her husband’s taken a new job posting, in Canada, and with it will come her two-month notice period, tops. Two months for Janet Yorkley to select a replacement for Mr Henley’s personal scrubber, two months to prove that we’re the team for the job.

  Providing there is a team for the job, of course. The thought of going head to head with Sonnie for the new position makes my heart race, and not in a good way.

  Hell, we’ll toss a coin for it if it comes to it, that’s what Sonnie says, but we both know it won’t come down to that. It’ll be Janet Yorkley’s call as to who washes Alexander Henley’s boxers, and that knowledge drives us on that bit harder, like women possessed, scrubbing our assigned areas like competition athletes and hoping we’ve got the edge. Even over each other, although we’d never say it.

  Cindy figures we’ll get it, one of us if not both, she tells us so. She runs us through the opposition when we catch her on a break, and points out all the reasons they’ll never get promoted over us.