am not doing any work for your company ever again. I've already told your lot that. Not ever. Not if you went down on your bended knee. It's not worth it. First that man who looked like he was about to cry every time he saw me and then that blonde woman who seemed to have a rocket up her arse, pardon my language, even though she did turn out all right in the end. You've probably got rid of her, haven't you, just for having a sense of justice?' He was a skinny, hot-tempered man. I liked him at once.
'It was me who told you about being underpaid, Mr. Khan,' I interrupted.
'No, no, no. No way I'm having that. It was her. The one with long blonde hair. Abbie something, that was her name. I've never met you.'
Was it really true that he didn't recognize me? I took off my black woollen cap. His expression didn't alter. So I gave in and pretended to be someone else. Abbie's friend.
'When did you last see her?' I asked, trying to sound businesslike.
'Friday January the eleventh,' he answered promptly.
'No, I mean when did you really see her?'
'I just told you.'
'It won't get her into any more trouble than she's already in, Mr. Khan.'
'So she is in trouble? I knew it. I told her she would be. She didn't seem to care at all.'
'Did you see her afterwards?'
He gave a shrug and glared at me. I wanted to hug him.
'I'm Abbie's friend,' I persisted. At any moment he'd recognize me and then he'd think I was fraudulent, malevolent or quite simply mad. 'I'm on her side.'
'That's what other people say too,' he said.
What did he mean by that? Bewildered, I just stared at him and he continued, 'All right, then. I saw her the next Monday. And then I went straight to my lawyers. She did me a big favour.'
'Monday the fourteenth.'
'Yes. If you see her, thank her from me.'
'I'll do that. And, Mr. Khan
'What?'
'Thanks,' I said. For a brief moment his expression wavered. He looked at me more closely and I turned away, putting the glasses back over my eyes and the cap back on my head. 'Goodbye.'
I had lunch in a warm, dimly lit Italian cafe in Soho. They gave me a table tucked into the corner, at the back. I could see anyone who came in, but felt invisible. The cafe was full of tourists. I could hear people speaking Spanish, French and German, just from where I was sitting. A shudder of happiness ran through me. I took off my coat, hat, scarf, dark glasses, and ordered spaghetti with clams and a glass of red wine. I ate slowly and spent nearly an hour there, listening to fragments of conversation, breathing in the smell of cigarettes, coffee, tomato sauce and herbs. I had a cappuccino and a slice of lemon cheesecake. My toes thawed out and my head stopped aching. I could do this, I thought. If I can find out what happened to me, make people believe it, if I can make myself safe again, then I can come to places like this and sit among the crowds and be happy. Just to sip a cup of coffee and eat some cake and feel warm and safe, that's happy. I'd forgotten about such things. I left the cafe and went and bought a pregnancy test.
I couldn't remember ever meeting Ben Brody before, though I'd been to his workshop in Highbury once. I made my way there now, through a fine icy drizzle. I could feel my nose the only bit of me that was exposed turning red again. His workshop was up a small alleyway off the arterial road. His name was on the door: 'Ben Brody, Product Designer'. How do people become product designers? I wondered. Then I felt stupid. How do people become office-space consultants, for God's sake? It struck me what a ludicrous job I'd been doing. If I ever got through this, I could become a gardener, a baker, a carpenter. I could actually make things. Except I'm useless with my hands.
Ben Brody did make things. Or, at least, he made prototypes. He'd designed the office desks and chairs for Avalanche, and the screens that made the vast open space of the floor less intimidating. And we'd underpaid him then overcharged our clients.
I didn't knock. I just opened the door and went in. The large room was lined with workbenches. Two men were standing near the skeleton of a bicycle. There was a drilling sound from the far end. The place smelt of sawdust. It reminded me of the way Pippa smells when she wakes up and her crinkly pink face stretches and yawns. Sweet and woody.
'Can I help you?'
'Mr. Brody?'
'No. Ben's out the back.' He jerked his thumb towards a door. 'Doing accounts. Shall I fetch him?'
'I'll do it.'
I opened the door and the man sitting at the desk looked up. I kept my woollen hat on but removed my dark glasses. In the dark little room, I could hardly see with them on.
'Yes?' he said. He stared at me. For a moment he looked as if he'd sucked on a lemon. He took off his glasses and laid them on the desk. He had a thin face, but I saw that his hands were large and strong. 'Yes?' he said once more.
'You probably don't remember me. We've only met a couple of times. My name's Abbie Devereaux and I'm from Jay and Joiner's.'
He looked at me blankly. 'I haven't entirely forgotten you,' he said. 'What are you doing here?'
His manner was almost rude. I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him. 'I won't take up your time. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion with the office.'
'I don't understand,' he said. Indeed, he looked grimly baffled. 'Why are you here?'
'I just want to sort things out.' He just looked at me. I tried again. 'There are some dates I don't understand, it's too complicated to go into the reasons.'
'Too complicated?'
'Don't ask. You don't want to know, I promise. I just wanted to ask you when we met. The last time we met.'
The phone rang behind him, and he swivelled round in his chair to pick it up. 'Absolutely not,' he said firmly. 'Rubber. No. No. That's right.' He put the phone down and turned back to me. 'You came here on Monday, three weeks ago, to tell me about concerns you had with the Avalanche contract.'
'Thank you,' I said. The back of my neck prickled for I was starting to feel that I recognized his voice. Not the tone of it, something about the intonation maybe. I dug my nails into my palms. 'You're quite sure I came on that day?'
'Yes,' he replied, in imitation of me. 'It's too complicated to go into the reasons, but I'm quite sure.'
I felt myself flushing. I got up and he stood too.
'I'm sorry to have taken your time,' I said formally.
'Not a problem,' he said. 'Goodbye. And I hope you get better soon.' 'Better?'
'Yes. You've been ill, haven't you?' 'I'm all right now,' I said hurriedly, and left.
I had not seen Molte Schmidt, the plumber, on the fourteenth, but I had called him on the phone. I had been very helpful, he said.
I must have had quite a day of it on that Monday, I thought -and then it occurred to me that in fact today was its replica and I was playing Grandmother's Footsteps with myself.
I quite enjoyed my twenty minutes with Molte because he was young and beautiful and friendly, with long hair tied back in a pony-tail and startling blue eyes. And because, as he told me, he was half Finnish and half German, and had an extremely thick accent.
And here, in the half-dusk, was my final stop of the day. The thin drizzle had turned to spitting snow, which flickered down out of the grey sky. But the lights were all on in the greenhouses and when I entered I smelt resin and heard running water. Occasionally a wind chime jingled in a gust of air.
It was like stepping out of my world and into another dimension. The greenhouse wasn't vast, yet a panoramic view was spread before me, as if I could see for miles and miles. There were trees everywhere, old and beautiful, with twisted trunks and spreading boughs. I bent down and touched one delicately.
'Chinese elm,' said a voice behind me. 'Over a hundred years old.'
I straightened up. Gordon Lockhart was stocky and balding. He was wearing bright red braces over a thick
