Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
It was a week before anything happened at work.
A week during which I sat down at my desk every day thrumming with tension, looking at Jamie’s face smiling smugly opposite me and wishing I could throw a brick at him.
A week when I woke every morning still half-expecting Sam to be there in bed next to me, and then remembering that he wasn’t and never would be again.
A week in which my mind ran over and over the same problems like a car with its wheels spinning on ice, getting absolutely nowhere.
Then, on Thursday, the solution came to me.
I could simply… leave. I could hand in my resignation, call the number on the Walkerson’s flyer that was still sitting on the shelf in the hallway where I kept my keys, and put the flat on the market.
I could email the agency that had found me jobs in yachting and go back to that.
In as little as a couple of months, I could be somewhere else.
Out on the ocean on the other side of the world.
I could run away, leaving all my problems behind me.
It would mean leaving Milton, which hurt my heart to think about, but he would have a safe home forever with Sam.
It would mean not being there to see Arthur grow up, but I’d send him photos and visit him when I was back in London on breaks.
It would mean not being there for my father’s wedding, but I didn’t care much about that, and I suspected he and his new bride wouldn’t either.
It was simple – it was so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.
I pushed back my chair, spinning around in the direction of Jasper’s office. But before I could get to my feet and walk the few steps to his door, I realised he had other visitors.
A man and a woman, her face and body swathed in black robes, he in white, his head covered. It was Ahmet and Farida – Zahra’s uncle and aunt.
For a second, my heart plummeted. I couldn’t be sure what they were doing here, but I was pretty certain it wouldn’t mean anything good.
Then I remembered that I didn’t have to care. I had a plan – I was going to leave. Jasper’s problems weren’t my problems any more. Feeling strangely carefree, almost numb with indifference, I turned back and smiled at Jamie.
He didn’t smile back. His face was immobile, like a poker player who’d gone all in on a massive hand and was waiting for the final card to be dealt.
‘What are you looking so happy about?’ Jamie asked.
‘Happy? Me? Not particularly.’ I smiled more widely. ‘Just having a good day. How about you?’
He tried to return my smile, but it came out more like a snarl. ‘One of us is, that’s for sure. But I think it’s more likely to be me.’
‘I guess we’re about to find out,’ I said airily. ‘Coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
So we sat in silence, coffeeless, waiting for Jasper’s door to open again.
We didn’t have to wait long. It was about twenty minutes before the door opened and Ahmet and Farida emerged, Jasper ushering them out with a courteously outstretched hand.
I couldn’t be sure, because Farida’s face was almost entirely covered by her niqab, but when she glanced in my direction, her eyes looked sympathetic, almost pitying.
When the lift door closed behind them, Jasper didn’t return to his office. He came straight over to Jamie and me.
‘You two’ – there was a muscle twitching on his jaw – ‘a moment please.’
We stood up and followed him into his inner sanctum. He gestured towards the two brocade-upholstered armchairs that faced his desk.
‘Take a seat.’
We sat. The chair was still warm from whoever out of Zahra’s aunt and uncle had been sitting there before. I wondered if Jamie had noticed his was too.
‘As you might have guessed,’ Jasper said, ‘the al-Badawis dropped in to inform me that they no longer require the services of Devereaux Partners. They were at great pains, Georgia, to emphasise that the service they received from you had been impeccable.’
I glanced fleetingly at Jamie, just in time to see him wince.
‘However’ – Jasper placed the tips of his fingers together, his elbows on the desk, and glared at us over the top of his hands – ‘the various leaks of confidential details that have come out of this office – first of their niece shopping at Harrods, and then of the arrangement yesterday with Okan Ataturk – have destroyed their confidence in our discretion.’
Two was hardly the same as various, I thought – then I remembered the leak of Cormac Kennedy’s sleepover with the woman who wasn’t Taisha and the publication of Trent Wallis’s stag-night shenanigans.
Perhaps multiple was the word after all. Surely if a head was going to roll for this, it would be Jamie’s and not mine?
‘In this business,’ Jasper went on, ‘reputation is everything. We stand or fall by the trust our clients place in us. And over the past few months, there have been multiple breaches of that trust.’
‘Personally, I think it’s disgraceful what Georgia has done,’ Jamie interjected. ‘I haven’t said anything to you until now, Jasper, because I’m a loyal person. But—’
‘I. Have. Not. Finished. Speaking.’ Jasper glared, and Jamie quailed.
Yes, I thought, you take what’s coming to you. Try and blame me if you like – I’ve done nothing wrong and surely Jasper knows it.
‘It’s not long since I was forced to call you into this office and speak to you about this very matter,’ Jasper told Jamie. ‘You denied all knowledge. Vociferously, if my memory serves me correctly.’
‘I denied it because it wasn’t me.’ Jamie didn’t sound as confident as I suspected he hoped. ‘Think about it, Jasper. Who had access to the Harrods’ pictures? Who booked the Ritz for Cormac Kennedy? Who knew about Okan’s plans for yesterday? Georgia. Not me.’
‘You knew too,’ I burst out. ‘You knew because I told you. And you were at Trent’s stag do.’
‘But not in the Harrods’ fitting room,’ Jasper observed coldly.
‘No, but’ – I leaned across the desk towards my boss, willing him not to doubt my sincerity – ‘Jamie borrowed my phone, one time when we were here in the office. The pictures of Zahra were on there. Jamie could easily have AirDropped them to his own phone and then shared them with the al-Badawis. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Jasper, and that’s the only possible explanation. ’
Jasper’s eyes, cold as a snake’s, moved from me to Jamie and then back again. Just like a snake, I realised – deciding which of the two terrified mice it was going to devour.
Tell him, I thought. Tell him what Ava told you about Jamie. Surely even Jasper can’t overlook that?
But then I realised there was no evidence of that either.
No way of bringing Jamie to justice without involving Ava herself.
And even if Ava was willing to relive her trauma by describing what had happened to her to Jasper, or to the police, or to a judge and jury – which I very much doubted she would be – there was no way I could make that decision on her behalf.
If Jamie’s assault on her had been a trump card for me, I wasn’t going to be able to play it.
‘What we have here,’ Jasper was saying, ‘is a clear case of he-said-she-said. Part of me is minded to get rid of the pair of you. But I have a business to run. Still, there has been gross misconduct here, and I cannot let it lie. I have considered this matter carefully and concluded that one of you has to go. The other will be kept under strict supervision on a final warning while I recruit a new team member.’
‘It obviously has to be Georgia,’ Jamie said. ‘I’ve been here longer than she has. And I’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘That,’ Jasper said, ‘is for me to decide. And length of tenure is neither here nor there. Now, I have concluded that—’
He stopped. A musical chime had sounded from Jamie’s pocket.
Don’t read your text message now, you dolt, I thought.
But when I looked at Jamie, I saw he was smiling.
‘Excuse me one second, Jasper,’ he said. ‘This might be important.’
Jamie pulled out his phone. Jasper looked like he might implode with rage.
As Jamie swiped his screen in a leisurely fashion, then tapped out a few words on the keyboard, his smile widened.
He had a plan, I realised. All along, he knew this was going to happen. I’d been fighting my corner for nothing – but that didn’t matter. Fighting had been the right thing to do, and the practice was going to come in handy.
He tucked his phone back in his pocket. ‘Apologies, Jasper. That was my mate Tuppers. We were at school together. He’s been going through a bit of a rough time because his old man kicked the bucket last week.’
‘While I’m certainly very sorry for your friend’s loss,’ Jasper said, ‘I fail to see what this could possibly have to do with—’
‘You might know him as Peregrine Montague,’ Jamie carried on as if Jasper hadn’t spoken. ‘Perry to friends. Tuppers is a nickname because his old nanny used to bring baked goods to school for him in plastic boxes. Tupperware, you know – hence Tuppers? But of course he’s the Duke of Altminster now.’
I could see where this was going. Jasper’s face had softened into something like yearning.
‘Tuppers is going to have his work cut out for him now he’s inherited the estate – seventy thousand acres up in Cheshire,’ Jamie went on.
‘He’ll need all sorts organising, starting with the funeral, and a reliable concierge service like Devereaux Partners would make all the difference to him.
But of course he’d want a contact with whom he already had a strong personal relationship.
So if I’m not going to be around…’ He shrugged and gave a disarming smile.
I pushed back my chair and stood up. ‘Jasper,’ I said.
‘I’ve had enough of this. I know I did nothing wrong.
I know Jamie was responsible for what happened.
But I’m not going to sit through some sort of kangaroo court where the result gets decided on the basis of who went to school with whom.
I’m handing in my resignation. At least, I will just as soon as I’ve got back to my desk and typed it out.
I can work my notice, or I can pack my things and leave today. ’
I knew what Jasper’s decision would be before he opened his mouth. Five minutes later, I was setting up an email autoreply to inform anyone who tried to get in touch with me that I was no longer working at Devereaux Partners and that they should contact Jamie Baldwin in my absence.
I found an empty photocopy paper box and packed my things into it. I didn’t have much – just a hairbrush, some odds and ends of cosmetics, a pair of high-heeled shoes and a photo of Sam and Milton, which I found I could barely look at. Then I prepared to shut my computer down for the last time.
But before I quit my email application, a new message landed in my inbox.
I’ll have to reply to this, I thought. I can’t leave without saying goodbye to her.
Dear Georgia,
I wanted to thank you so much again for last week. I know it was Okan’s idea, but it was the most magical day of my life, and it could never have happened without you. I am so happy I feel like I’ll never stop smiling.
Anyway, I’m reaching out to you because Okan and I had an idea.
I’m going to be starting my PhD soon, and we’ll be planning our wedding, and then there’s all the social stuff we’ll have on with Okan’s dad’s charities and everything, plus we’ll be travelling between London, Istanbul and Riyadh. It’s a lot!
And I figured, what I really need is someone who can help me organise my life a bit. Someone who’s super efficient, who I trust completely and, above all, who’s fun to work with. And the obvious person was you.
I know your job at Devereaux Partners is amazing and you must love it there. But if you were thinking of ever leaving, perhaps I could tempt you? Money’s not an object, within reason, and we’d happily match or exceed your current remuneration package (Okan told me I should put that bit in!).
Please do reply and let me know what you think.
Love and best wishes,
Zahra
I didn’t reply to her email. Instead, I forwarded it to my personal account and then deleted it from my Devereaux Partners’ inbox. Then I shut down my computer, picked up the box with my stuff in it and left the office without saying another word to Jasper or Jamie.
Feeling like I was walking on air, I got the lift to the ground floor. I said goodbye to the receptionist, pushed open the door and stepped out into the street, temporarily blinded by the sunshine.
Rummaging one-handed in my bag for my sunglasses, I wasn’t looking where I was going. There was a thump as the corner of the box in my arm collided with something, and a voice said, ‘Ouch!’
‘Sorry!’ I looked up.
Sam was standing there, smiling down at me.