Heller's Punishment (5 page)

I groaned. “You
watched the early news?” They both laughed again. I unlaced my
boots. “How bad was it? Give it to me straight.”

“Real bad!” Niq
smiled.

“Terribly bad,”
laughed Daniel. “And by the way, nice sensible undies you have on
today. You’ll never find another boyfriend wearing those, you
know.”

I stared at
him. “You’re kidding me? They filmed me in my undies?”

“Not your face.
It’s pixelated,” said Niq.

I flung myself
against the back of the lounge, looking up at the ceiling. “Can you
tell it’s me?”

“Only if you
know what a huge butt you have,” said Daniel, jumping up to avoid
another thump as I sprang forward. “I’ll see to dinner.”

“You better,
buddy,” I warned, settling back on the lounge, my arm around Niq.
He nestled his head against my shoulder and I kissed his forehead.
He was a sweet kid. I loved him a lot.

We watched the
news together. I couldn’t believe the footage. There was me
rampaging across the screen in the costume, then the bastards had
filmed me being pulled from it on the escalator and rushed away.
Elton came across very well – tall, commanding, handsome, a knight
in shining armour, a great advertisement for
Heller’s
. I
would have looked twice at the screen if I’d been a general public
member. And sure, they didn’t show my face, instead focussing the
camera on my retreating white-cottoned butt. I think they even
slowed the footage down as my butt cheeks rolled from side to side
in turn.

“Watch out,
Pippa Middleton! Some competition for you,” quipped one smartarse
newsreader, making the others giggle unprofessionally.

“They can’t
just show someone’s butt on the news without their permission, can
they?” I complained. “That’s not right. It’s invading my privacy. I
was very distressed at that moment. There were spiders everywhere
on me. It’s not right.” And I whined all through dinner and the
washing up until they both told me to can it.

“We made up a
song for you,” Daniel said, his face angelic. Nobody did angelic
like Daniel.

“Really?” I
asked warily.

And in his
lovely voice he sang to the tune of “Spiderman”.

Spiderlings,
spiderlings

Go where no man
dares to go

Any crack, any
hole

Could they even
find Tilly’s soul?

Look out! Here
come the spiderlings

Running from
her girl things

Poor little
spiderlings!

“Har-dee-har-har,” I said, unimpressed. I threw myself on the
lounge in a sulk.

“Let’s watch a
DVD,” suggested Niq, smiling.

“Okay,” I
agreed, ready to forget my awful day. “What have you picked?”

His face
twisted with laughter. “How about
Arachnophobia
?”

“Oh, that’s
it,” I declared and jumped up, swatting them out of my flat, both
still laughing. “Get out. Go on. Scram.”

I slammed the
door in their faces and spent the rest of the evening taking
another shower and retiring early.

The week passed
easily. I enjoyed my time in the (fumigated) costume and the
director had been right. Crowds, drawn by the TV coverage, were
impressive. I’d never been hugged so much in my life, especially by
young men. And I wasn’t sure, because of the padding of the
costume, but I think some of them were even groping my butt. But
best of all, I was an entire floor away from Elton, not forced to
eat my own ears to stop listening to him.

On the final
day, when the museum staff had ushered the last weary patron out, I
took the lift upstairs to catch a ride home with Elton. I caught
him and Alice exchanging phone numbers. He looked embarrassed,
flushing.

“Alice is
interested in a career in security,” he explained unnecessarily as
he helped me out of the costume. “She wants to have coffee next
week to talk about it.”

“Sure,” I said
noncommittally, my eyes running up and down her again. She would
have made the worst security officer I’d ever met, although as a
devoted girlfriend . . .

“Good luck with
that, Alice,” I smiled as I dressed, winking at her. She stared at
me in surprise, blushed, then smiled.

“Thanks, Tilly.
I really hope to achieve my . . . career goals.”

“Be
gentle.”

“I’m not sure I
can promise that. I’m very passionate about . . . security.”

Poor Elton was
left scratching his head over our incomprehensible conversation. I
wasn’t sure whether to pity him or not. The female of the species,
et cetera, et cetera
. . . And while Alice didn’t look the
type to eat her partner after mating, you never knew with the quiet
ones.

I waved him
goodbye back at the Warehouse, free again, and enjoyed a quiet and
relaxing weekend hanging around with Daniel and Niq, putting up
with more spider jokes.

Back in the
office on Monday morning, Heller’s sharp voice invaded my thoughts.
“Matilda! Do we have to wait for you all day?”

My eyes flew
up. It was five minutes past the start of our regular staff meeting
and I was still sitting at my desk, directly opposite his office.
I’d been distracted from the time by the impressively glossy new
business brochure for
Heller’s
that someone had left in my
in-tray. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on it and I wasn’t
happy, to say the least.

I stormed into
his office, waving the brochure around angrily. “Is this some kind
of a joke?”

“What are you
talking about?” Heller asked, his calm voice only serving to
irritate me further. As usual, we were meeting in his office in the
small grouping of two armchairs and a lounge he’d placed around a
coffee table. The furniture was from Europe, sleek, expensive,
modern and black. Heller sat in his customary armchair, colossal
twins Sid and Clive filled up the three-seater lounge by themselves
and Daniel had snared the other armchair. I would be forced to drag
a chair from Heller’s desk over to the meeting, which only made me
grumpier.

“This!” I flung
the brochure down on the coffee table in front of him and hauled
over a chair.

He looked at
it. “Yes. It’s the new brochure. Do you like it?”

“No, I don’t
like it! Why the hell is there a picture of me in my bikini in it?”
I glared at everyone, opening the brochure and stabbing at the
offending photo with my index finger. “Is that the kind of image
that
Heller’s
wants to project about its female staff? This
brochure has gone to every existing client and will go to every
potential client for the next two years! Nobody even asked me if I
agreed. I
cannot
believe you people sometimes!”

Heller couldn’t
deny it – there I was, caught unawares on the rooftop, sunning
myself in my skimpiest bikini, a lot of flesh on display.

“Which one of
you meatheads decided it would be a good idea to advertise the
business with
my body
?”

Three of the
four men in the room stared at me, perplexed. The fourth had a
suspiciously bland expression on his face.

“Daniel?” I
questioned, honing in, watching him like a hawk. His mouth
contorted under the control he was exerting. He couldn’t meet my
eyes.

“
Daniel!
” I screeched with an equal mix of anger and
laughter. I threw the brochure at him. “I thought this was
real!”

He dodged the
brochure, laughing at me. “You should have seen your face, Tilly.
Absolutely priceless.”

I launched
myself on him, tickling mercilessly. He grabbed my arms and we
wrestled together on the armchair, both giggling madly, the other
three men watching us with varying levels of tolerance. Heller’s
level was quite low.

“Okay, that’s
enough, you two. Sit down, Matilda.”

I plonked
myself down on Daniel’s lap, leaning back against his chest, my arm
around his shoulders.

“Get off,” he
grunted, trying to shove me.

“No. You have
to put up with me now,” I smiled. “Serves you right for
photoshopping that brochure.”

“God, you weigh
so much,” he grumbled. “You should really lay off the chocolate
biscuits.”

“We don’t have
any chocolate biscuits here,” Heller frowned, ever the health
freak.

“Of course we
don’t,” I agreed innocently, tweaking Daniel’s nose to keep him
quiet. “Daniel’s mistaken. As usual.” Heller didn’t need to know
that I smuggled them in, but his sceptical eyes suggested that
perhaps he’d already guessed.

Heller sighed.
“Please get off Daniel, Matilda. You’ll be straining his back. Go
and sit over there. And I’d appreciate it if we could maintain some
professionalism. I’m very busy today.”

I was
immediately contrite. I’d never do anything to hurt Daniel.

“Sorry,
sweetie,” I said to him apologetically, planting a kiss on his
forehead. I obediently sat in the chair I’d dragged over.

“Let’s start,
shall we? Daniel, what do you have to report?”

And the meeting
followed its usual pattern. Daniel, who was Heller’s office
manager, spoke about new and prospective clients and budgetary
matters; Sid brought everyone up-to-date on surveillance issues;
ditto for Clive on security issues. Heller didn’t speak much, but
listened intently. I neither spoke much nor listened much and today
was no exception. I spent the time sneaking glances at Heller,
trying to decide if I was only sort of in love with him or mostly
in love with him, an important distinction for a woman.

“Matilda?
Matilda?” Heller’s snappy voice slowly penetrated my dreamy
reverie. “Would you pay attention for once, please?”

“Oh,
sorry.”

“I have a job
for you.”

He was silent
for a few seconds, flicking through the paperwork on his lap,
beautiful face pursed in concentration. He found the file he was
searching for and freed it from the bundle. He spent another few
seconds re-reading the information it contained before continuing.
“This one’s a little out of the ordinary.”

I met his eyes.
“Heller, I haven’t had an ordinary job since I started working
here. I don’t even know what an ordinary job
is
around this
place.”

“You can come
with me to meet the clients tomorrow.”

“Okay. What’s
the job?”

“We meet them
at eleven, so we’ll leave at ten-fifteen.”

“And the job
is?”

“Don’t be
late.” He stood up. “That’s it, thank you everyone. I have a
meeting to go to.”

And he
departed, leaving me none the wiser.

I hated it when
he did that.

Chapter 4

“This is my
daughter,” the man said as he pushed the photograph across the
coffee table to us. “I’m sorry, but it’s over two years old. We
don’t have anything more recent.” He looked ashamed as he said
that, as if he’d just admitted to a great flaw in his and his
wife’s parenting skills not to have a current photo of their only
child.

I picked up the
photo to have a better look. She was a pretty girl, with long
tousled blonde hair, dark blue eyes, a cute pert nose and a sweet
cupid’s bow mouth. She was carrying a little baby fat, giving her
fullness in her face and the hint of a double chin. She wasn’t
smiling in the photo, but she was obviously well cared for, with
nice clothes and an expensive diamond and emerald necklace around
her neck, a set of matching earrings dangling from her ears.

“She was
sixteen in that photo. We bought her that jewellery for her
sixteenth birthday,” said her mother softly. She had barely
contributed a word to the conversation so far, sitting next to her
husband on the luxurious leather sofa in their sumptuous living
room, nervously twirling a strand of pearls in her fingers.

I passed the
photo to Heller, who looked at it silently before passing it back
to me. I put it in my handbag. I would need it later to identify
the girl.

“And how long
has it been since you’ve spoken to your daughter, Mr Heyne?” I
asked.

He consulted
silently with his wife, before turning back to us. “It would be at
least a year since we spoke to Felicia, Ms Chalmers. That was the
last time she ran away. She refuses to have any further direct
contact with us. She accuses us of interfering too much in her life
and bullying her. We only have contact with her through our lawyer
now. And even then she usually only contacts him to demand more
money from us.”

“Do you know
what she’s been doing during the time since you saw her?”

His laugh
contained no joy at all. “Shooting up, stealing, selling herself
and being arrested would be my guess. Precisely what she’s been
doing since she ran away the first time not long after that photo
was taken.”

It was a
heart-breaking story, but neither of them appeared to be on the
verge of tears, although Mrs Heyne definitely looked the weepy
type. I received the impression that they had no more tears left to
shed. There was an aura of poignant resignation around them, as if
they’d finally come to terms with the fact that their only child
was not going to be swayed from her choice of lifestyle by their
tears and entreaties.

Mr Heyne spread
his hands out in front of him in a gesture of hopelessness, and
continued, “This is really our last chance with her. She’s told our
lawyer that she wants to kick her drug habit and get off the
street. She says she’s willing to take up our offer to go to
rehabilitation, which we’ve sweetened with a considerable amount of
money to be given to her on successful completion of the program.”
He sighed with weariness. “But we’ve been down this road twice
before. If it doesn’t work this time, we’re at a loss as to how to
help her any more. We’ll probably have to cut her loose. That
absolutely breaks our heart, but there’s only so much you can take
as a parent. It’s taking a terrible toll on our own health. Do you
have any children, Ms Chalmers?”