Sirocco. Anne Mather

the white ribbon which encircled it. ‘Aren't you going to open it? Looks like flowers to me.'

      ‘And to me, Mr Hodges,’ said Rachel eagerly, abandoning her daydream for an unexpectedly welcome reality, and tearing off the ribbon, she displayed the box's contents.

      It was full of roses, pure white roses, as fresh as the moment they were picked from the bush. Long-stemmed, some starting to open their petals, others little more than ivory buds, they spilled their fragrance into the dusty atmosphere of the office, and as Rachel gazed at them, a lump came into her throat.

      ‘They must have cost someone a pretty penny,’ remarked Mr Hodges drily, bending his head to enjoy the bouquet. ‘Must be more than a couple of dozen of them in there. Roses in February! What next?'

      Rachel lifted all the roses out, looking for the card which she was sure must accompany them. But there was none. Just the pure white roses in their pure white box, eloquent enough of the meaning behind them, she decided.

      Mr Hodges was lingering, and eager to get on the phone to Roger, Rachel thrust one of the delicate blooms into the old man's hand. ‘A buttonhole,’ she said, smiling, and the caretaker took his dismissal happily, tucking the stem through his lapel.

      Her first attempt to reach Roger was not successful. He was not in his office, his secretary told her, and realising it was lunch time, Rachel agreed to call back. Then, collecting a couple of empty milk bottles, she filled them with water and deposited the roses in them, discovering as she did so that he had indeed sent her twenty-four.

      ‘Two dozen,’ she murmured to herself, as she made her lunchtime cup of coffee. He had never done anything like that before. Which made it all the more appealing, revealing as it did his desire to really mend the breach between them.

      She eventually got through to Roger at a quarter to three, and although he came on the line, she could tell at once that he was not pleased to be disturbed.

      ‘Rachel, I've got the buyer from Streetline with me at the moment,’ he exclaimed, evidently involved in making a sale. ‘Could we talk tonight, do you think? Come to the apartment. We can talk there.'

      ‘All right.’ Rachel squashed her disappointment that she was not to have more time to thank him right now. ‘I—I just wanted you to know, I love them.'

      There was a pause, and then Roger asked half irritably: ‘What was that?'

      ‘The roses,’ said Rachel urgently. ‘I love the roses. Thank you for sending them. It was a—a wonderful thought.'

      ‘Wait a minute ...’ Clearly Roger was fighting a losing battle with his curiosity, ‘what are you talking about? What roses? I didn't send any roses. They must be for somebody else.'

      Rachel noticed he didn't say from somebody else, and for the first time she wondered how Mr Hodges had known they were for her. There had been no indication on the box, no card, as he had seen. She shook her head bewilderedly. If Roger hadn't sent them, who had?

      The answer was too outrageous to be true. In spite of his professed affection for her, Peter Rennison would never do something as incriminating as send flowers, and in any case, what other man of her acquaintance could afford to spend so much money on two dozen roses? It had to be someone to whom twenty-five or thirty pounds meant very little; someone who wore Italian leather jackets and Cartier watches, and treated a Lamborghini Countach with casual indifference ...

      ‘Is that all?'

      Realising Roger was still waiting for her response, Rachel pulled herself together. ‘What? Oh, yes—yes,’ she murmured unhappily. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Roger. Goodbye.'

      ‘Until later,’ he inserted, reminding her of her promise to go to his apartment, and nodding her head, she added: ‘Until later,’ in a low unenthusiastic voice.

      When she rang Mr Hodges’ small office to enquire about the roses, he was quite definite that they were hers. ‘A gentleman brought them,’ he said, sniffing down the phone. ‘For Miss Fleming, Miss Rachel Fleming. Now you know there are no other Miss Flemings in the building, let alone a Miss Rachel Fleming.'

      Rachel sighed. ‘The man——’ She paused. ‘What was he like?'

      ‘I dunno. Foreign-looking. Tall and dark——'

      ‘Dark, did you say?'

      ‘—wearing a kind of chauffeur's uniform.'

      ‘Oh!’ Rachel's brief moment of uncertainty fled. ‘Oh, well, thank you, Mr Hodges. I'm very grateful.'

      With the receiver restored to its rest, there remained the problem of what she was going to do with them. Her first instincts were to leave the roses in the office, but to do so would evoke exactly the kind of interest she most wanted to avoid. And besides, Mr Black would not appreciate their presence. He would probably say they aggravated his asthma, and with the weekend coming, it wasn't fair to leave them to die. She would have to take them home and hope to goodness Roger did not question her too thoroughly as to their sender's identity. She could always pretend they had been delivered by mistake, but no one knew to whom they really belonged.

      In consequence, she emerged from the building that afternoon carrying the white box in her arms. Against the dark material of her double-breasted jacket, it was distinctly noticeable, but happily it was raining and the other girls were in too much of a hurry to get home to pay her any attention. It was a little cumbersome, too, coping with its length and the copious wedge of her shoulder bag, but she gasped indignantly when it was suddenly lifted out of her grasp.

      ‘Permettez-moi, mademoiselle,' said a rather gutteral French voice, and she looked round in surprise to find a man in chauffeur's uniform at her elbow.

      ‘I beg your pardon——’ she began, more because she was astounded at his effrontery than at his use of another language, and the man, whose harsh features were not altogether reassuring in the half light, bowed his head apologetically.

      ‘Forgive me,’ he exclaimed, his English overlaid by a heavy accent, ‘but I am here to escort you, mademoiselle. You wish me to carry your bag, also?'

      ‘No.’ Rachel was vaguely alarmed by his intrusion. In the fading light of an early evening, it was disconcerting to be accosted when there was no one she knew to come to her assistance, and while she suspected Alexis Roche was behind this, she didn't want to get involved with him either. ‘I——’ She looked regretfully at the box of roses in his arms, and then, realising she could hardly claim them in the circumstances, she shook her head. ‘No, I don't need any help, thank you. Excuse me, I have a bus to catch.'

      ‘Ah, mais non.’ To her dismay, his hand curled round her sleeve, gripping her gently, but firmly, in the kind of grasp she knew would tighten like a vice if she tried to get free. ‘Monsieur Roche is waiting for you, mademoiselle. Come with me. It is not far.'