Bad Friends. Claire Seeber

but I’m afraid –’

      The girl was deep in conversation with another skinny someone – a someone I recognised with a painful thud. Serena. I prepared myself to say hello, but she just gazed at me vacantly, immaculate in a long leather coat, then tightened the belt around her tiny waist and carried on her conversation. I thought I heard her mention a wedding as I slunk back into the changing-room, sinking down on the stool in the corner.

      When I eventually came out again, Serena was admiring her many reflections, all clad in a pair of vertiginous snakeskin boots. How appropriate and how very unethical, I thought sourly.

      I bought the dress just to prove I had as much panache as them, and then I let the door bang behind me as I strode purposefully out of the shop. Outside, the street was busy, the clamour of Covent Garden loud and vibrant – but I felt like I’d lost my mooring, like I was floating off to sea.

      Somehow it took some time to get back to work.

      In a show of power no doubt born from my afternoon flit, Charlie had ensured I had a stack of new stuff on my desk to sort out for Monday’s programme. I was just putting the phone down from briefing Renee when he wandered in, breathing brandy fumes at me.

      ‘Marvellous lunch with Alan Yentob,’ Charlie crowed, pulling a book on the Lost Gardens of Heligan from my shelf. ‘He’s wetting himself with excitement over my idea for a layman’s Panorama. Current affairs for the thicko.’

      ‘Really?’ I said politely. It was extremely hard to imagine Yentob in Charlie’s thrall.

      ‘Yes, darling.’ He perched on the edge of my desk. ‘The Easy View, I think we’ll call it. You know, I never see you as the country type.’ He flicked through the garden book indolently. ‘Cornwall’s deeply unfashionable these days, darling. So bloody far away, and always raining. Give me Dubai any time.’ Charlie shoved the book back, knocking three box-files off the other end that he didn’t bother to retrieve. ‘Going to Bel’s tonight?’

      ‘Um, I’m thinking about it.’ I doodled on my pad, holding my breath. ‘Are you?’

      ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darling.’

      I breathed out.

      ‘So sad to be losing one of our very best girls.’ Bel had long since progressed onto make-up for drama and film, but Charlie liked to think of himself as a great benefactor, responsible for everyone’s career, and Bel was always remembered fondly. ‘Don’t be late now, eh?’ He strolled off around the office to peer down some cleavages.

      I was so long at my desk that all the other girls left; they’d wait for me in the bar downstairs, they said, wired with Friday night anticipation. Eventually I headed to the loo with my dress. Mid tights-change, my mobile rang. ‘Private number’ flashed up on the display.

      ‘Hello?’

      Nothing.

      ‘Hello? Hello?’ I repeated irritably. ‘Is anyone there?’

      Just one long, slow breath – and then the line went dead.

      ‘For God’s sake.’ I considered the phone in my hand for a second, then I rang Alex’s number. It went straight to voicemail. I slammed the mobile down on the side of the sink, and stood for a minute. Then I fished out my eyeliner. ‘Bloody bollocks to you, too.’

      The frosted window rattled suddenly; one of the cubicle doors banged. I jumped, drawing a great kohl tick across my cheek. Immediately tense, I peered round. I was sure I’d been the last one in the office.

      ‘Hello?’ I hated the fact my voice wavered as I spoke.

      I thought I heard the shuffle of feet. A clammy sweat broke out on my top lip. I took a deep breath and crept down the row of cubicles to the one nearest the exit. It was shut.

      ‘Is anyone there?’

      I stared at it and then quickly pushed the door: it swung open and smacked hard against the wall. The cubicle was empty. Nervously I laughed at my overactive imagination, but I struggled into the dress as fast as I could, not caring that I couldn’t reach the zip myself. I wanted to get out of there. As I walked into the corridor, one of the fire-exit doors swung shut.

      I took a deep breath. I had to retrieve my stuff from my office, which was in darkness now as I hurried across, just the ghostly flicker of light from the computer’s screensaver. As I grabbed my bag, I heard another noise.

      ‘Who’s there?’ I swung round, my voice sharp with fear.

      Silence fell again across the darkened room. Perhaps it was one of the cleaners. Perhaps I’d imagined it.

      I hurried towards the lift now – and then I heard a cough. A definite cough. I froze for a second behind the central pillar, my heart pounding. Silence fell again.

      I shook my head. I was being silly. Except, if I was being silly, why had no one answered when I’d called?

      And then a low voice, sullen, wheedling, slunk out across the darkness. Peering round the pillar, I noticed the crack of light under Charlie’s door. I took a deep breath and crept nearer. I could hear the mutter more clearly: a lone voice. It wasn’t Charlie – that much I knew for sure. Flattened against the wall outside the door, which was slightly ajar, I realised someone was using his phone.

      ‘But what’s in it for me? I need some sort of assurance,’ I heard. A pause. Then –

      ‘So if I do it, you’ll sort the …? Okay. And can you put that in writing?’ the voice said. Another pause. ‘No, I realise that.’

      I peered through the crack in the door now. There was Joseph Blake, his legs up on the desk, the phone cord wound around his stubby finger, smug even in the gloom. His shiny face was half-lit; his eyes narrowed as he listened. Fragments of lost memory suddenly floated through my throbbing head – a sudden image of Joseph in evening dress and …

      I shuddered violently. That night at the –

      His voice cut through my memories and they dissolved again.

      ‘Yeah, of course I’ll get you good ones. The most important. For the right –’

      Craning forward into the gloom I caught my dress on the edge of a desk and jarred my bad ankle. My sob of pain was audible. Joseph leapt up, crashing the receiver down immediately.

      ‘Who’s there?’ His voice was sharp as he stood behind the desk.

      ‘Oh God, Joseph. You really scared me.’ My heart was pounding through the thin material of my dress as I pushed the door fully open. ‘I nearly had a heart attack. What are you doing here? Does Charlie know you’re using his phone?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ His overly-red lips turned down in an unpleasant pout. ‘I just had a call to make.’

      ‘What kind of call?’

      He looked supremely guilty as we regarded one another silently for a second, his pale face striped with luminous colour from the beam of Charlie’s desk light.

      ‘It was work,’ he muttered eventually. ‘Just work. You know I don’t have my own desk any more. I just needed a phone.’

      ‘Well, as admirable as working late on a Friday might be, you shouldn’t be using private offices.’ I pushed down my irritation as he glared at me as if I was in the wrong. ‘There are plenty of phones out there. Come on,’ I gestured to him. ‘Zip me up and let’s get out of here.’

      As Joseph stood, he shoved something into his bag in a fluid movement.

      ‘What was that?’ I screwed up my eyes in the gloom.

      ‘What?’ Joseph followed my gaze to his bag. ‘Oh, nothing. Just my diary.’

      I headed towards the door, desperate to get out of there. Frankly I’d been dreading Bel’s party, but now I suddenly saw safety in