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she smiles remotely at me, as though she hasn’t just seen me walking along with Stephanie.
“Hello. Do you have an appointment?”
“Not exactly,” I say breathlessly. “I need to see Sam Roxton at White Globe Consulting.
Poppy Wyatt.”
I wait while she turns away and makes a call on her cell phone. I’m trying to stand there
patiently, but I’m barely able to contain myself. Those messages are something to do with this
whole memo thing. I know they are.
“I’m sorry.” The girl faces me with professional pleasantness. “Sam is unavailable right
now.”
“Could you tell him it’s urgent?” I shoot back. “Please?”
Clearly restraining a desire to tell me to go away, the girl turns and makes another call,
which lasts all of thirty seconds.
“I’m sorry.” Another frozen smile. “Mr. Roxton is busy for the remainder of the day, and
most of the other staff are away at the company conference. Perhaps you should phone his
assistant and make an appointment. Now, if you could please make way for our other guests?”
She’s ushering me out of the main doors. Make way clearly means piss off.
“Look, I need to see him.” I duck round her and start heading for the escalators. “Please
let me go up there. It’ll be fine.”
“Excuse me!” she says, grabbing me by the sleeve. “You can’t just march in there!
Thomas?”
Oh, you have to be kidding. She’s calling over the security guard. What a wimp.
“But it’s a real emergency.” I appeal to both of them. “He’ll want to see me. ’
“Then call and make an appointment!” she snaps, as the security guard leads me to the
main doors.
“Fine!” I snap back. “I will! I’ll call right now! See you in two minutes!” I stomp onto
the pavement and reach into my pocket.
And then the full horror hits me. I don’t have a phone.
I don’t have a phone.
I’m powerless. I can’t get into the building and I can’t ring Sam. I can’t tell him about
this. I can’t do anything. Why didn’t I buy a new phone earlier? Why don’t I always walk around
with a spare phone? It should be the law, like having a spare tire.
“Excuse me?” I hurry over to the window cleaner. “Do you have a phone I can borrow?”
“Sorry, love.” He clicks his teeth. “I do, but it’s out of battery.”
“Right.” I smile, breathless with anxiety. “Thanks anyway—oh!”
I stop midstream, peering through the glass into the building. God loves me! There’s
Sam! He’s standing twenty yards away in the lobby, talking animatedly to some guy in a suit
holding a leather briefcase. Maybe that’s Julian from legal.
As they head towards the lifts, I push open the main doors, but Thomas the security guard
is waiting for me.
“I don’t think so,” he says, blocking my way.
“But I need to get in.”
“If you could step aside—”
“But he’ll want to see me! Sam! Over here! It’s Poppy! Saaam!” I yell, but someone’s
moving a sofa in the reception area, and the scraping sound on the marble drowns me out.
“No, you don’t!” says the security guard firmly. “Out you go.” His hands are around my
shoulders and, the next thing, I find myself back on the pavement, panting in outrage.
I can’t believe that just happened. He threw me out! I’ve never been physically thrown
out of anywhere in my life. I didn’t think they were allowed to do that.
A crowd of people has arrived at the entrance and I stand aside to let them go in, my
thoughts skittering wildly. Should I hurry down the street and try to find a pay phone? Should I
try to get in again? Should I make a run for it into the lobby and see how far I get before I’m
tackled to the ground? Sam’s standing in front of the lifts now, still talking to the guy with the
leather briefcase. He’ll be gone in a few moments. It’s torture. If I could only attract his attention
…
“No luck?” says the window cleaner sympathetically from the top of his ladder. He’s
covered an entire massive pane of glass with suds and is about to wipe them off with his scraper
thing.
And then it comes to me.
“Wait!” I call urgently up to him. “Don’t wipe! Please!”
I’ve never written in soap suds in my life before, but luckily I’m not aiming for anything
very ambitious. Just MAS. In six-foot-high letters. A bit wobbly—but who’s fussing?
“Nice job,” says the window cleaner approvingly from where he’s sitting. “You could
come into business with me.”
“Thanks,” I say modestly, and wipe my brow, my arm aching.
If Sam doesn’t see that, if someone doesn’t notice it and poke him on the shoulder and
say, “Hey, look at that—”
“Poppy?”
I turn and look down from my perch on the window cleaner’s ladder. Sam’s standing
there on the pavement, looking up at me incredulously.
“Is that addressed to me?”
We travel upstairs in silence. Vicks is waiting in Sam’s office, and as she sees me she
bangs her forehead with the heel of her hand.
“This had better be good,” says Sam tersely, closing the glass door behind us. “I have
five minutes. There’s a bit of an emergency going on—”
I feel a flash of anger. Does he think I don’t realize that? Does he think I wrote SAM in
six-foot sudsy letters on a whim?
“I appreciate that,” I say, matching his curt tone. “I just thought you might be interested
in these messages, which came in to Violet’s phone last week. This phone.” I reach for the
phone, still lying on his desk.
“Whose phone is that?” says Vicks, eyeing me with suspicion.
“Violet’s,” replies Sam. “My PA? Clive’s daughter? Shot off to be a model?”
“Oh, her.” Vicks frowns again and jerks a thumb at me. “Well, what was she doing with
Violet’s phone?”
Sam and I exchange glances.
“Long story,” says Sam at last. “Violet threw it away. Poppy was … babysitting it.”
“I got a couple of messages, which I wrote down.” I put the Lion King program down
between them and read the messages out for good measure, as I know my writing isn’t that clear.
“Scottie has a contact, keyhole surgery, no trace, be fucking careful.” I point at the program.
“This second message was a few days later, from Scottie himself. It’s done. Surgical strike. No
trace. Genius stuff. Adiós, Santa Claus.” I let the words sink in a moment before I add, “The first
message was from Justin Cole.”
“Justin?” Sam looks alert.
“I didn’t recognize his voice at the time, but I do now. It was him talking about keyhole
surgery and no trace.”
“Vicks.” Sam is looking at her. “Come on. You’ve got to see now—”
“I see nothing! Just a few random words. How can we even be sure it was Justin?”
Sam turns to me. “Are these voice mails? Can we still listen to them?”
“No. They were just … you know. Phone messages. They left them and I wrote them
down.”
Vicks looks perplexed. “OK, this makes no sense. Did you introduce yourself? Why
would Justin have left a message with you?” She exhales angrily. “Sam, I don’t have time for
this.”
“He didn’t realize I was a person,” I explain, flushing. “I pretended to be an answering
machine.”
“What?” She stares at me, uncomprehending.