It was just after six when she got away, hurrying across the road to Mad Jack’s, where Simone, Nicola and Carly, her three underlings – all of whom had been released at the generous ‘Friday afternoon only’ time of four-thirty – would be waiting for her.
Mad Jack’s, a onetime gin palace dating from Dickens’s day, had been refurbished for the modern age, but still reeked of atmosphere. Behind its traditional wood and glass entrance was a dimly-lit interior, arranged on split-levels and filled wherever you looked with timber beams, hardwood panelling and exposed brickwork. As always at this time of the week, it was crowded to its outer doors with shouting, besuited revellers. The noise level was astonishing. Guffaws echoed from wall to wall; there was a clashing of glasses and a banging of tables and chairs on the solid oak floor. It could have been worse of course: Louise had started at Goldstein & Hoff before the smoking-ban had been introduced, and back in those days the place was fogged with cigar fumes.
The four girls made a little enclave for themselves in one of the far corners, and settled down. They ordered a salad each, though with a central order of chips accompanied by mayo and ketchup dips. Louise made sure to drink only a couple of Chardonnays with hers. It wasn’t just that she was the boss and therefore had a responsibility to behave with wisdom and decorum, but she had to drive some of the way home. Nevertheless, it was a part of the week that they all looked forward to; a time for the sort of rude quips that were strictly forbidden during company hours (at least, on Louise’s watch). Occasionally other colleagues would drag up stools and join them, men to drunkenly flirt or women to share tasty snippets they’d just picked up. At some point that evening it would assume the dimensions of a free-for-all. By seven-thirty, Carly was onto her sixth Southern Comfort and coke and Nicola was in a deep conversation with a handsome young chap from Securities. The ornately glazed doors crashed open as yet more City guys piled in. There were further multi-decibel greetings, increased roars of laughter. The place was starting to smell of sweat as well as alcohol, and, checking her watch, Louise decided that she’d soon be on her way.
Before heading for home, she went downstairs into the basement, where the lavatories were. The ladies was located at the end of a short passage, alongside several other doors – two marked ‘Staff Only’, one marked ‘Gents’. When she entered, it was empty. She went into one of the cubicles, hiked her skirt up, lowered her tights and sat down.
And heard someone come into the room after her.
Louise expected the normal ‘click-click-click’ of heels progressing to one of the other cubicles or to the mirror over the washbasins. But for the briefest time there was no sound at all. Then she heard it – the slow stump of flat shoes filled by heavy feet.
They advanced a couple of yards and then halted. Louise found herself listening curiously. Why did she suddenly have the feeling that whoever it was had stopped just on the other side of her door? She glanced down. From this angle it was impossible to see beneath the door, but she was suddenly convinced there was someone there, listening.
She glanced at the lock. It was fully engaged.
The silence continued for several seconds, before the feet moved away.
Louise struggled not to exhale with relief. She was being absurd, she realised. There was nothing to worry about. She was only seven or eight feet below the brawling bedlam that was Mad Jack’s on a Friday evening.
Once more the feet halted.
Louise listened again. Had they entered one of the other cubicles? Almost certainly they had, but there was no sound of a door being closed or a lock being thrown. And now that she was listening particularly hard, she fancied she could hear breathing – steady, regular, but also deep and husky. Like a man’s breathing.
Maybe it was a member of staff, a caretaker or repairman? She was about to clear her throat, to let him know that there was a woman in here, when it suddenly struck her as a bad idea. Suppose it wasn’t a member of staff?
The breathing continued, and the feet moved again across the room; more dull heavy thuds on the tiled floor, getting louder. Whoever it was, they were backtracking along the front of the row of cubicles.
Unconsciously, Louise raised a knuckle to her mouth. Was he going to stop outside her door again?
But he didn’t.
He stumped heavily past, veering away across the room. A second later, she heard the lavatories’ main door open and close. And then there was silence.
Louise waited. Still there was silence.
Eventually she stood, pulled her tights back up, pushed her skirt down, cautiously disengaged the lock, and peeked out. She couldn’t see everything, but she appeared to be alone. She took a breath, then rushed across to the door, opened it and went out into the passage – and stopped in her tracks. Halfway up it on the right, one of the other doors was ajar. It was one of those marked ‘Staff Only’ and a thin slice of blackness was visible on the other side. Louise stared at it hard. Was that faint movement she could see through there? Was someone partly concealed but staring back at her?
The door crashed open with a violent bang.
But the man who came through it was young and wearing the pressed black trousers and olive-green t-shirt of the bar-staff. He was carrying a plastic tray filled with gleaming wet crockery. When he saw her and realised that he’d made her jump, he grinned apologetically. ‘Sorry love.’
He sauntered away up the stairs, towards the bar area.
With one hand on her heart, Louise ventured forward and glanced through the door as it swung slowly closed. Beyond it, a darkened corridor with boxes down one side connected with a series of lit rooms, and at its far end, with a door opening out into one of the service alleys behind the building. Several other members of staff were moving around down there.
Feeling foolish, she hurried on upstairs and rejoined the others.
Louise finally left the premises, briefcase in hand, just before eight. It was a five-minute walk down to Bank, where she took the Central Line to Oxford Circus. There, she changed to the Bakerloo.
She rode down the escalator to the northbound line, and when she got to the bottom found that she was alone. This might have been odd at any other time of day, but it was now Friday evening and most travellers would have been headed into town rather than away from it. The arched passageways were equally deserted, yet Louise had only walked a few yards when she thought she heard footsteps somewhere behind her. She stopped and listened, but now heard nothing.
She strolled through onto the platform. Again, no one else was present. A gust of warm wind blew a few scraps of waste paper along the gleaming tracks. And then she heard the footsteps again – apparently drawing closer. Discomforted, she gazed back along the passage, seeing nothing but expecting someone to come into view.
No one did. And now the footsteps stopped. It was almost as though whoever it was had sensed that she was waiting for him.
A train groaned into the station behind her.
Relieved, she climbed aboard.
At Marylebone, back among commuters, she bought an evening paper and had a coffee before boarding an overland train to High Wycombe. It was now close to eight-thirty. There was no real rush – Alan, who owned his own insurance company, spent his Friday afternoons on the golf course and would be in the clubhouse bar until well after eleven, but it was always good to feel you were
