But by Degrees

by Kit Eyre

  After running my tongue over my chapped lips, I murmured, ‘Got it.’

  ‘So Knight’s on his way is he? What did you say to him?’

  ‘I didn’t – he . . . He wouldn’t have come if I’d asked.’

  ‘Least you know that about him. So it was Fitch, was it?’

  ‘Yeah. She told him it was something regional. Said he’d definitely be here.’

  ‘Well, I hope she laid it on thick. Next thing, the rest of the staff need to be told they’re not going home. Don’t care how you do it. Give that job to Fitch. She’s good at palming people off.’

  ‘Okay,’ I mumbled, jamming my thumb into the wall until it ached and buckled.

  There was silence on the other end of the line. I wondered if the call had dropped, like we had to deal with downstairs a few times a day. The phones in this place were as wrecked as the rest of the wiring. It’d been the tenth power cut last summer that had persuaded the board to move us. I remembered that day vividly. Matt had walked his team the mile or so down to the shops for ice cream; Jude ended up taking hers across to one of the derelict gardens to get a bit of shade. Caroline, on the other hand, had me and the girls baking in the store cupboard doing inventory.

  A voice suddenly broke into my thoughts: ‘Would it help if you had something to call me? Makes it reassuring, doesn’t it? I’m not a faceless, nameless bogeyman.’

  ‘No, I – I know that.’

  ‘Really?’ he queried, his voice lilting. ‘How?’

  I swallowed. ‘Well, I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’

  A laugh echoed down the phone, causing me to bash my shoulder against Michael’s. I’d almost forgotten he was there, but now he lodged his moist palm on my bicep and I got another pungent whiff of his aftershave. I kept my eyes fixed on the chipped desk, wiling him to move away before the swirl in my throat edged any higher.

  ‘Blunt,’ the caller said when he’d finished chuckling, ‘that’s what I like about you, Danni. For the rest of them, then; you can call me Conrad, all right? They’ll like it, something to hold onto.’

  ‘Conrad,’ I said, testing the name on my lips.

  ‘I’ll call back in an hour,’ he added before hanging up.

  It happened so quickly that I stayed still, unsure whether it was a test or something. The silence stretched and I slid the headset off, placing it neatly on the desk beside the computer. For a few precious seconds, nothing happened. Then Michael’s hand tightened around my arm.

  ‘Danni?’

  I was hemmed in by the desk to the front and him to the side. The only thing I could do was kick the chair back, grinding the wing against the wall. Spatters of paint splintered off as I managed to haul myself out of the chair and put the length of the landing between us.

  Michael stood too, his bulky frame filling the space. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Conrad – that’s what he says to call him.’ I clawed at my neck until my skin burned. ‘He’ll call back in an hour. He seems to – to know Harriet. Know of her, I don’t know. It’s like he’s talked to her or something. Um . . . We’ve got to tell people they’re not going home. I don’t know what we say, how we do it.’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ Michael replied with an encouraging smile. ‘You let me worry about that. I’ll talk to Harriet, work something out. Come on downstairs, I’ll get Jude to make you a cuppa.’

  My throat constricted and I clamped my hand over my mouth, convinced I was going to throw up on the carpet. Nothing came out but, when he wafted me towards the staircase, I tasted blood on my lips. I concentrated on licking it away, ignoring the smarting from where my teeth had ripped through.

  Somehow, I made it down the stairs by clutching the banister and keeping two steps ahead of Michael. At the bottom, though, I found myself face-to-face with Caroline hovering by the cellar door. She swept forward, checking herself when Michael rounded the banister behind me.

  ‘There you are,’ she said in a simpering tone. ‘Now, something’s going on, isn’t it? Whatever it is, you should’ve run it by me, not Harriet. What’s wrong? Why have they taken everyone’s phones and turned the internet off? Is it redundancy? Have Gerbera gone under and they don’t want anyone to know?’

  The barrage drifted over me and I twisted my head towards Michael. He stepped past, holding out an arm to Caroline.

  ‘How about we go back inside, hmm?’

  She shook him off, still eyeing me. ‘With respect, Michael, I asked my supervisor a question. Tell me what’s going on, Danni. Now.’

  I was absorbing it; every word hit a sponge in my brain, sopping it up before I could react. Then I caught sight of a face in the glass panel of the office door beyond her shoulder and I clenched my jaw.

  ‘Danni,’ Caroline persisted, ‘tell me –’

  ‘Shut up,’ I snapped.

  Both she and Michael faltered. The door opened and Jude stepped through, her cheeks pale. That just made mine burn more ferociously and I turned my glare on Caroline. Months of keeping every emotion in check ruptured and, from the flicker on her face, I’d managed to scare her. She even edged closer to Michael.

  Jude darted forward, putting herself between me and them. ‘Let’s all calm down.’

  ‘I am calm,’ said Caroline, though her voice quivered. ‘She’s behaving like a nutter.’

  My instinct was to drive forward, but Jude grabbed my arm. The delay allowed Michael to steer Caroline back towards the main office and the last I heard was her bursting out that she was going to report me for something or other. I snickered and yanked my arm away from Jude’s. She blinked then moved towards me again.

  ‘You should’ve let me resign when I wanted to,’ I said.

  Her step faltered. ‘What?’

  ‘You should’ve left me alone.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she muttered, forehead crinkling. ‘You know that. Look, why don’t we find somewhere to talk–’

  ‘I don’t want to talk.’ I grasped hold of the banister again and planted one foot on the bottom step. ‘Leave me alone. And this time you can bloody well listen.’

  Chapter 7

  June 2011

  ‘Do we have to do this here?’

  Harriet exhaled a column of smoke then took another puff of her cigarette. ‘I need to think. This helps me think.’

  ‘The horse shit’s not doing much for the rest of us,’ I pointed out from behind my hand.

  She rolled her eyes and swiped a pile of ash from the table top. Whoever thought to stick a wooden frame in a secluded horse toilet and call it a picnic area had a lot to answer for. Every so often, a car zipped past the layby, throwing up a fresh wave of stenches for me and Gemma to retch at in unison. Harriet was oblivious, drumming away on the bench with her free hand and mumbling things neither of us could catch under her breath. It’d been ten minutes since I’d finished explaining what Knight had said back at Gooseberry House and she still wasn’t ready to talk.

  ‘All right,’ she said suddenly, stubbing her cigarette out on the edge of the table, ‘here’s how it is. He’s rattled. He wouldn’t have got us there if he wasn’t. Warning us off . . . That tells me we’re onto something. Thank Christ it’s not all in my bloody head.’

  I exchanged a look with Gemma. ‘Fair enough, but it’s not telling us anything else.’

  ‘Don’t be thick, course it is. For a start, we’ve always said that Conrad pulling Knight’s name out of thin air was bollocks. If he wanted to show us he was serious, he’d done it by listing all sorts of bloody information about us. Stands to reason it was something to do with the business as well – he brought my name into it and I had sod-all to do with Knight when I could help it. So it’s a grudge or something Knight had involvement in, like we said from the start.’

  ‘They’ve closed ranks,’ I reminded her.

  She slid off the bench, reaching for another cigarette. ‘No, no, no. He blinked. You saw the look on his face when he thought Gemma was a journo. He’s hiding something.’<
br />
  ‘It still doesn’t matter when we can’t prove it.’

  ‘There are ways and means,’ Harriet muttered.

  ‘Care to enlighten us?’ I questioned. ‘The way I see it, we’re heading home with bugger all, just the way we started.’

  She opened her mouth to speak then changed her mind. After looking at the unlit cigarette between her fingers, she stuffed it back into the packet and nodded to the car.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ she announced. ‘Let’s find some services.’

  I wasn’t about to stick myself in a glass box off the motorway with a bunch of irritable motorists as well as Harriet in one of her cuddly moods, so I stayed in the car at the service station. Gemma followed her off, leaving me with eighties pop blaring out through the windows and across the car park. I closed my eyes to try and submerge myself in Cyndi Lauper and Wham. That worked until the passenger door slammed and I opened my eyes to find Gemma fumbling with two coffee cups in the front seat.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘I brought you a coffee.’

  I took the cup, the cardboard scorching my palms. ‘Where’s Harriet?’

  Gemma blew out her breath. ‘I drew the short straw.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I questioned.

  ‘We’ve been talking,’ she explained, squashing down the option buttons on the lid of her cup. ‘You know Harriet’s set on getting to the truth. I mean, it matters, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.’

  She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Good. Look, you’ll have the same reaction to this that I did but . . . Well, maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe she could –’

  ‘No,’ I cut in. ‘No way.’

  ‘Think about it,’ she pressed.

  I sniggered and took a sip of scalding coffee. ‘Can’t believe you, of all people, are telling me that. Why can’t Harriet ever do her own dirty work? Keeping me on the phone –’

  ‘That’s Knight talking, not you,’ Gemma interrupted.

  ‘Doesn’t make it any less true.’

  ‘Dan, he was worried about somebody talking,’ she persisted. ‘We all saw that and –’

  ‘She won’t talk.’

  Gemma shrugged. ‘Harriet seems to think she will. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Well, I’m not seeing her.’ I clamped my hands around my cup until my fingertips burned. ‘I’m not crawling to her for help. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ Gemma echoed. ‘Harriet said to ask, that’s all.’

  The M1 was blocked at Nottingham.

  We were sandwiched between two lorries, edging forward a few yards at a time for nearly an hour. My stomach swirled with coffee and prawn cocktail crisps while Harriet swore at the Audi in front and Gemma tried to focus on the travel bulletins cutting into the classical soundtrack. None of it changed the fact we weren’t moving and I sat with my fingers coiled around the door handle, ready to pick my way through cars to find a patch of oxygen if necessary, till we began shuffling forward again.

  The closer we got to Leeds, the heavier my body felt. Knight’s words had mingled with Harriet’s in my head, Gemma’s voice chirping on the side lines, and I couldn’t shut it all out. By the time we reached the ring road, dusk was falling and my head was pounding. When Harriet made a sharp left turn away from the bustle of the city, it took me a while to realise where we were going.

  Familiar landmarks zoomed past, houses and shops I’d seen every morning on the way to work. I’d stopped for petrol there when I’d needed it, or there was a newsagent further down that sold loose cola bottles and strawberry laces. My mornings were fluid, even though I always made it in on time.

  I gripped the rim of Harriet’s seat. ‘You don’t need to take me back there. I don’t need reminding; you’re not going to convince me.’

  Gemma shifted her weight, but said nothing. My eyes swept along the street as the ramshackle terraces gave way to a swanky development of detached properties, most still with unfinished walls and roofs. I lost my bearings when Harriet made a couple of sharp turns until we reached a stretch of waste ground and she drew the car to a halt.

  ‘They’re making it into a memorial garden in the next few months. Didn’t seem right building on it, at least that’s how the story goes. You ask me, Gerbera paid through the nose for it.’

  ‘How did you find that out?’ I asked then I swallowed. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care. Let’s go.’

  It was gloomy at this end of the estate, no streetlamps and only our headlights illuminating the weeds and gravel on the old office site. Suddenly, another car chugged past us and bumped up against the kerb. Even though I didn’t recognise it, my throat turned to sandpaper.

  I grabbed at Gemma’s shoulder in the passenger seat. ‘You’d already done it. How could you lie to me?’

  ‘I told her to,’ Harriet said. ‘Don’t blame her, blame me.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry, I do. I can’t do this,’ I rushed on, grasping her arm now. ‘I need to get out of here. Please, Harriet!’

  She shook her head and my gaze tripped past her as the small car’s door opened. Out stepped a figure, back turned to us. The hair was longer, unkempt, giving me a flicker of hope, until she turned towards the waste ground. There was no mistaking her profile; there never was.

  No, it was Jude all right.

  Chapter 8

  February 2010

  I hid in the toilets for ten minutes then I found Harriet and Michael waiting for me on the landing. Michael hung back, eyebrows contracted, but Harriet was oblivious to it.

  ‘We’ve told them. They took it okay, most of them. The younger ones are in bits; Jude’s holding them together.’

  I crunched down on my lip again, blood trickling out of the wounds from earlier.

  ‘We came up with a trip to the Dales for the cover story,’ Harriet continued while Michael studied me with a growing frown. ‘Team-building exercise that we sprung on everyone this morning and the bus has broken down. Won’t fool them, but they’ll get the truth later. They’re sure as hell not going to come looking. Anyway, they’ve all sent the messages. Do you want your phone back before I stick them in the safe?’

  I snickered. ‘Who have I got to text?’

  ‘A boyfriend or –’

  ‘I’m gay.’

  She blinked then regrouped. ‘Well, then, a girlfriend.’

  ‘Just forget it,’ I muttered, digging my nails into my elbows. ‘Look, you’ve told me and I’ll tell him. Go on, you can go now.’

  ‘Michael’s staying with you for the next –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Danni –’

  ‘He’s not staying,’ I insisted. ‘Last time, he distracted me. I couldn’t . . . Let me deal with it.’

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘We need another witness.’

  ‘Why? You don’t trust me?’

  ‘Of course I bloody well do. But you know Caroline doesn’t, for a start. She’s spreading shit about you down there, reckons you’re on the edge. You don’t want Michael? Fine. What if I stayed?’

  I sighed, my anger draining away. ‘No, he wouldn’t like that. He knows you or something.’

  ‘Yeah, Michael said that. Nothing’s ringing a bell though.’ She paused and cast her eyes between me and Michael. ‘All right – if not us, how about Jude?’

  Her name settled in the pit of my stomach. I scuffed my heel along the carpet and finally nodded. Michael peeled away towards the stairs, but Harriet lingered with her hands on her hips, lips pressed together. I wasn’t used to her freezing like this. Whether it was her fingers battering the desk when you were in a meeting, or switching feet in the queue for the kettle, she was always moving one way or another.

  ‘What?’ I questioned when the scrutiny became too much.

  She shrugged. ‘I’m worried, that’s all. You should tell me if there’s something else going on, something I need to know about.’

  Somehow, I managed to
tear my gaze away from hers and swallowed down the words welling up in my throat. Chucking petrol onto the flames tonight would be pretty stupid. We were all stuck here till Conrad decided otherwise and I didn’t fancy adding to the drama.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I answered. ‘Apart from the obvious.’

  Harriet crossed to the stairs, tapping her hand against every nick in the wall. She hesitated on the top step and glanced over, but then she bobbed her head down and I heard each step echo through the building. It went quiet when the door shrieked below.

  It was only a couple of minutes before Jude appeared, though it felt longer.

  I didn’t know how I’d react to seeing her, whether it’d be the anger that swept over me when I’d seen her downstairs before or whether I’d be relieved like I had been when I bumped into her on the stairs. My brain flicked between the possibilities until footsteps creaked and her blonde hair edged into view. She rounded the banister then halted, arms laced together.

  ‘Hi,’ she murmured.

  My muscles unravelled and her expression softened. She swept forward to gather me up, her hair tickling my eyelids and cheek. I drew back and caught her lips urgently, grateful for her fingers sliding under the rim of my shirt to scrape against my stomach. By the time I pulled away, we were both flushed and breathless.

  I rested our foreheads together. ‘I’m sorry for before. It was sitting with – I’m sorry – I didn’t . . . How do you live with it?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said with a derisive chuckle. ‘I’ve been a walking disaster for the last month, but you didn’t wanna see.’

  ‘I couldn’t deal with it,’ I admitted.

  She stroked my cheek with the tip of her thumb. ‘Well, I betrayed you.’

  ‘You didn’t though. You betrayed him.’

  ‘I wish it felt that way.’ She tilted her chin and kissed me again. ‘We can’t carry on like this, you know. Coming into work every day, seeing you and knowing that we won’t . . .’