Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
Carol and Margaret’s stroll back to Sheldon Oaks was leisurely, their drinks providing them each with a pleasant buzz.
Once they entered the grounds, rather than taking the most direct route to the building’s entrance, they took a detour around the gardens, agreeing that they didn’t appreciate their beautiful surroundings enough.
Dozens of bees were working away. It gave Carol pleasure to see nature in action, oblivious to the city beyond the gates. She caught a whiff of a familiar scent.
“What’s that smell?” said Margaret.
Carol pointed to its source.
“Ah. I see,” said Margaret, spotting Tyler, who was hiding under a tree, smoking a spliff. “Back when I was in charge that could get you a custodial sentence. Silly, really.”
The lawns were yellowing in the patches that the sprinklers couldn’t reach. When was the last time it had rained? Carol ran her hand along some pampas grass. She picked a small piece and crumbled it in her fingers. She remembered the feeling from when she’d first done it, seventy years ago.
Margaret talked Carol through the species on display: pink dahlias, foxgloves, deadly nightshade hiding among the salvias and the lupines, the monkshood and the asters.
“How do you know all this?” asked Carol.
“Boarding school. Never had too many companions, I’m afraid,” said Margaret. “Gardens were lovely, though. Made friends with the flowers.”
Carol looked at her and wondered if they would have got on as children. They’d grown up in very different worlds but were both eccentrics who didn’t quite fit in. Yes, she thought. They probably would have done.
Both women jumped with fright. A faceless figure slowly emerged from a row of hedges, a white silhouette, gaining in size as it walked in their direction.
“Hello, ladies.”
Only then did they identify the figure as a beekeeper. They laughed and headed for the main entrance.
“I’m pretty sure they have a skeleton key here that has access to all our apartments,” said Carol.
“It would make sense, I suppose,” said Margaret.
“Could well work for the lock on the door to the roof too.”
“Could do, yes,” said Margaret. “But how do we get hold of one without arousing suspicion?”
“Here’s a plan. We go back to my apartment.
I can keep my front door open if that puts you at ease,” said Carol.
Margaret playfully slapped her arm. “Then I call down to Reception. Better yet, I press my alarm. That should send Elisa, and whoever else is about, upstairs. Meanwhile, you make your way to what should be an empty front desk for a snoop around. I’m sure there’s a key in a drawer down there. I doubt it’ll be hard to find.”
“I don’t know,” said Margaret, playing nervously with the zip on her handbag.
“If you don’t find it, you don’t find it. I’ll just say I felt faint, they’ll give me a glass of water, and we’ll come up with another plan.”
“I don’t know about snooping around. I’m not…Carol, that’s not really my scene.”
“You were a politician, yes?”
“Yes.”
“A successful one. In cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“Well, doesn’t that involve a little lying, a little bending the truth, a little bit of the dark arts?”
“I always tried to keep myself human but, well, yes.” Margaret looked around to see if anyone was listening, then leaned in and whispered, “I’ve got top secret clearance.
I used to read people’s MI5 files. They know everything.
You wouldn’t believe some of the things people get up to.
I couldn’t look the foreign secretary in the face after I found out what he liked to get up to at the weekend. ”
Carol raised her eyebrows.
“Leather. Lots of leather,” said Margaret. “But that’s all I’ll say. My lips are sealed.”
“Then think of this like that. A little bit of the dark arts for the greater good.”
Margaret sighed, conceding Carol’s argument. “All right. If it’s for the greater good.”
They passed Elisa, who was alone at Reception going through some paperwork. Carol and Margaret moved through the lobby quickly, keeping their heads down. Polly was in an armchair near the lifts, with a pot of tea and a bag of yarn.
“That woman is always knitting,” mumbled Margaret.
“Cup of coffee, before we put our plan into motion? Perhaps something stronger for courage?” said Carol.
“Why not?”
They traveled up to Carol’s floor in the lift. Margaret said she could feel her morning G and T in her legs. Carol turned the key in her front door.