Dark Eyes of London (11 page)

‘Mr Fleming won’t - Amy, where are you going?’ she asked, as she noticed Amy was leaving.

‘Just - just going to the ladies’,’ Amy stammered, backing away further.

‘But you can’t keep Mr Fleming wait-’ Carol started to say.

Amy didn’t wait to let Carol finish her sentence. She turned and ran along the corridor and round the corner to the bank of lockers. As she ran, she grabbed the key to her locker.  Her hands were shaking as she put the key into the lock, and it took two or three attempts.

‘Spicer? What are you doing?’

She looked round and saw Gerald standing by the partition which separated the locker area from the work desks. Not replying, she took out her bag, pulled her coat off its peg, and ran back down the corridor, with the sound of Gerald calling out her name.

To get to the lifts she had to run past the corridor leading to Fleming’s office. As she did so, she caught sight of Fleming’s door open, with Fleming standing in the doorway. Behind him stood Merchant and the albino. Carol was walking down the corridor after her.

‘Miss Spicer,’ Carol called out. ‘Come back at once.  You can’t -’

Amy ran to the lifts and pressed the call button.  There was no way she could wait: the indicators said one lift was on the seventh floor, the other on the sixteenth. But she had no time.   She turned and ran to the stairs. As she did so, the lift door opened. Thank God!  She rushed back to the lift and stabbed at the ‘G’ button. The doors slid shut; just as they closed, she could see the albino come into the main corridor and run to the lift. He was just too late. The doors had closed, but Amy was still able to see the expression on his face: one of hatred and fury. Who
was
this guy?

Breathless and resisting the urge to sob, Amy prayed that the lift would not stop any more on the way down. It didn’t.

Once it reached the ground floor, Amy ran out into the building lobby. She pushed through the turnstile and out through the glass doors into the open air.

The cold hit her as soon as she got outside. Fighting against the icy wind, Amy ran across the square to the tube station. She turned and looked one more time at her office building, looking for the albino, but saw no-one following her.  Nevertheless, she hurried down the escalators to the subterranean platform below.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sully Beecham was also at work that day, also wishing he was someplace else. He worked for a major High Street bank and his job had the grand title of Area Insurance Sales Manager. This meant he managed a team of five District Insurance Sales Managers, who in turn managed teams of five or six Insurance Consultants. These consultants were based in one or maybe two branches of the bank and sold insurance policies to customers. This differed from what was in their job descriptions, namely advising customers in respect of their insurance so these customers could purchase the most appropriate policy.

This was the reason for the meeting Sully and his five fellow Area Managers had been summoned to attend.  The bank had already incurred a multi-million pound fine for miss-selling insurance policies, and had been forced by the bank regulator to set aside over three billion pounds for compensation to customers who had been inappropriately sold a policy. However, mystery shopper analysis had shown that some consultants were still not following the new rules.

The meeting was being chaired by Sully’s manager, a middle-aged, short, tubby man named Cecil Holland. Sully and most of his colleagues had little time for Holland; he was recruited from outside the industry and had, they felt, absolutely no experience or knowledge of the field in which he was working.

Holland was on his feet making a PowerPoint presentation on the insurance sales figures for each of the six Areas. He was using a little red laser pointer to highlight various aspects of the current slides.

‘Now we come to the penetration rate for each of your areas,’ Holland droned on. ‘The penetration rate being the number of policies your people have sold as a percentage of the number of customer interviews they have carried out. I have put the rates on the slide, but of course you all know the rate for your own individual areas of responsibility.’

Sully raised his eyes to the ceiling and looked across the table at one of his fellows, who was doing the same thing.

‘Now you can see that there is a considerable contrast between the highest rate, which is eighty-two percent and the lowest, which is merely forty-one percent.’

One of the attendees shifted awkwardly in his seat;
no prizes for guessing who’s at
forty-one
, thought Sully.

‘Before we ask the managers with the lowest two rates to explain what is going on in their areas, maybe Mr Beecham could enlighten us on how he is achieving such a high figure. And achieving it in a compliant manner too, I trust.’

The whole room looked in Sully’s direction. Sully had his eyes fixed on the A4 notepad in front of him. One of the attendees coughed.

‘Sullivan,’ Holland prompted.

The room was silent, all eyes fixed on Sully.

‘Sullivan - are you still with us?’ repeated Holland, louder this time.

‘Sully,’ whispered the colleague next to him, nudging his arm.

Sully sat up with a jolt. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘My mind was elsewhere for a moment.’

‘Glad to see you’re awake now, Sullivan,’ snapped Holland. ‘Perhaps you’d care to share with us what your teams are doing. To achieve an eighty-two percent penetration, in case you missed that bit.’

‘Oh, yes; right,’ said Sully, getting himself together, and beginning an off the cuff report.

After Sully had explained what his teams were doing, Holland adjourned the meeting for a fifteen minute coffee break. Sully and several of the others headed straight for the gents.

‘Thought you had fallen asleep there,’ laughed Jim Fanning, one of the others, as he stood at the urinal next to the one Sully was using.

It took Sully a second or two to figure out what Fanning meant. ‘Oh, yeah. I was miles away.’

‘Hopefully somewhere more interesting than Holland’s penetration rates,’ laughed Fanning, zipping up and walking over to the wash basin. ‘Not that that could be too difficult.’

‘No, not really,’ Sully laughed as he began washing his hands.

‘See you later,’ Fanning said drying his hands and leaving Sully alone.

‘See you,’ Sully murmured, absent-mindedly.

In front of the three hand basins was a large mirror, which the office cleaner had failed to give attention to for at least a week, going by the numerous smears and splash marks. Resting his hands on the side of his basin, Sully stared at his reflection, into his own eyes. He had had very little sleep in the last couple of weeks, and it showed. The rims of his eyes were red, and his eye sockets were dark and hollow. He looked pale and wan. His hair, normally shiny and well-shampooed, was slightly unkempt and greasy, something which Jane had commented on once or twice.

He thought back to the last time he was here for a meeting. It was two, maybe three weeks ago - Sully had lost all track of time - and everything was going so well for him. His team was performing well, and he was expecting to see a tangible benefit of that when he was paid next, he had a great home life with Jane. And a great sex life. A beautiful smart home, regular eating out, and wonderful holidays - he had been skiing only a month or so back. Then it all went wrong.

*****

He had got out of the meeting just after six. Normally he would have been unhappy at this, as he would have faced a ninety minute drive to get back home. But tonight was different: Jane had been invited to a friend’s hen night, and so he agreed to go out for a meal and a drink with some of his colleagues. They spent until seven thirty in
The
Moorhen
, a small corner pub next door to the bank branch where the meeting had been held, then adjourned to a nearby Chinese restaurant for a meal. They all left the restaurant about eleven-thirty.

Sully and Jane exchanged a couple of text messages during the evening: just to check that the other one was okay and to wish them a good evening. There was no reason, therefore, to hear from her again until he got home. As he was walking across the car park where he had left his Astra, his phone rang. He could see it was Jane.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Everything all right? How’s the party going?’

‘What time will you be home?’ Jane asked, not answering his questions.

‘I’m just getting back to the car now, so I should be back about half twelve. Is everything all right?’

Jane said nothing.

‘Jane - are you all right? What’s up?’

‘If you’re on your way home now, I’ll tell you when you get in.’

Sully was becoming concerned. ‘Jane - what it is?’

‘It’ll keep. Tell you when you get in.’

Sully was about to argue but Jane had hung up.

Perplexed and worried, he climbed into the Astra and sped out of the car park. Traffic was very light at this time of night. He was never one to pay much heed to speed limits, tonight even less so, and arrived at home at a quarter past midnight. He hurried from the car to the block entrance, and ran up the stairs two or three at a time. Once inside their flat, he found Jane sitting quietly in an armchair. The television was off and she was sitting in silence. She was holding a tumbler of what looked like whisky. She was staring blankly in front of her, but looked up at Sully when he came in.

‘What’s up?’ he said, rushing over and kneeling down in front of her.

‘You were right. Something’s happened.’

‘What? What’s happened?’

‘It’s Lisa.’

‘Lisa? What’s she done?’

‘She’s dead.’

Sully laughed at first, a short, nervous laugh. He leaned back slightly. ‘She’s what? That’s not very -’ He stopped as he realised Jane was not joking. He stood up and stepped two paces back and leaned one hand on the top of the television set. He rubbed his forehead. ‘I - I - don’t understand. What- what happened?’ he stammered.

Calmly and concisely Jane recounted the events of the night. She was just about to leave for her friend’s hen party when her mobile rang. It was the police - the British Transport Police, to be exact. A Sergeant Green had called to tell her that Lisa had had an accident on the way home from work.   She had been hit by a train and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sully took his hand off the television and rushed back over to Jane. He knelt down again, took the tumbler out of her hand and put his arms round her. A second or two later Jane reciprocated.

‘Oh, Janey, I’m so so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘So sorry.’

He held her tightly for a minute or two, neither of them speaking, until Jane extricated herself. She stood up. ‘It’s late. I need to go to bed,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot for me to do tomorrow.’

‘For
us
to do, Janey,’ Sully said quietly.

Jane looked at him and smiled. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘For us to do. Let’s get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning, phone in to work. Tell people. Need to go and see Mum, I guess.’

‘You get off to bed.  I’ll lock up. I won’t be long.’

Jane walked out to the bathroom, and then went to bed. As she was doing so, Sully checked the front door and windows. Picked up her tumbler, finished off her whisky and took the empty glass in to the kitchen. Switched off the coffee maker, and then wandered back into the lounge. He noticed the television was on standby: they must have forgotten to switch it off when they left for work this morning. He slid his hand across the set as he went over to the light switch: noticing it was still warm he made a mental note to make sure they switched it off properly in future when they went to work.

There was a spare dining chair against the wall where the light switch was situated. Sully sat down on this chair and stared at the empty, darkened living room. He felt numb; as if he had been punched in the guts by a weightlifter. He visualized the happier times he had spent in this room: the noise, the laughter. The fun times he and Jane had spent here on their own; the times Lisa had been over and the three of them had got drunk. Sometimes Lisa would have brought a boyfriend, but most times she was on her own. He knew she had been married before, but she and her husband had split before he and Jane got together.  A lot of times it was the three of them; most times it was he and Jane. Sometimes it was he and Lisa. He looked over at the bedroom door and sighed, leaning back so the back of his head touched the wall. Thank God Jane never knew.

After brushing his teeth and gargling with mouthwash he went to bed himself. As he undressed in the darkness he watched Jane lying still under the cover. He was not sure if she was asleep yet. He was not sure how to deal with things, not sure what to say to Jane.

Sully slipped into bed and leaned over to Jane. She was lying, foetal style, with her back to him. ‘Don’t forget, I’m always here for you,’ he whispered, kissing her on the temple.

He lay on his back staring at the ceiling. He was still numb: still not sure how he was going to react when it sunk in; how he should react.

Jane turned over and moved closer to him. She put her arm round his waist and snuggled closer. Sully put his arm round her shoulder and nuzzled her hair. She moved even closer and slowly moved her hand down to below his navel. She fingered his hair and moved her hand lower still. Sully moved slightly: this was unexpected, but felt nice.

He was soon aroused and still without saying anything she climbed on top of him. Sully winced as a fingernail caught some skin as she felt down below her and roughly manoeuvred him inside her. She sat down hard on him, and started to ride him with a rocking motion. Usually in bed Sully took the lead, but this was different. She rode him harder and harder, leaning forward and holding on to the metal frame headboard for support and leverage. The only sound Sully could hear was the loud creaking coming from under the mattress, and the headboard banging on the wall in a regular rhythm. Harder and harder, now not a rocking motion but a succession of hard spasms. Even after Sully came, she continued, her movements getting more and more violent. Sully held onto her thighs; it was now beginning to hurt. Finally she lifted her head back, gave a loud, hoarse cry, then stopped. Still saying nothing, she climbed off, and returned to her original position in the bed.

Sully lay there, again staring at the ceiling, not knowing what to think, or do, or say. The only thought he had was a phrase somebody had said to him once: that people deal with grief in different ways.

And so it went on: through the normal procedures people went through with the death of a family member, Jane reacted in a cool, business-like fashion, not how Sully had anticipated.  She travelled up north to see her mother, not that the poor woman had any conception of who Jane was, let alone what she was telling her. She announced one day that she was going to visit Lisa’s ex-husband, a guy called Tom, to give him the news. Sully suggested he accompany her for support, but she insisted on going alone. In fact, most of the formalities she insisted on going through by herself.  All this had concerned Sully: after the time they had spent together, he wanted to be there for her, but she had not wanted this. He put this down to her way of dealing with her loss, so decided not to rock the boat. It was only one day when he was sitting at work that he realised that he had not seen her cry over Lisa. Not one solitary tear. She never had been somebody who burst into tears at the drop of a hat, but nevertheless, he had expected something. He prepared himself for the well to burst at some stage in the future, and vowed to be ready when it did.