‘Mark. Your first day?’ Jackson stepped to one side. Mark’s hands were full and he hung his briefcase off his little finger.
‘Yes,’ Mark replied. Should he have added an ingratiating “sir”? Strike a balance, he decided. Keep it formal, polite, but casual, too. He tapped his floor button, just managing to reach it with his thumb, then propped his briefcase between his feet. His arms ached from carrying the cardboard box.
‘I must try the gym.’ It wasn’t his thing. He liked to frequent the terraces of a football stadium back in Manchester, but now, away from familiar territory, downtime was about the comfy sofa and a bottle of beer. Without a car, he was lumbered with public transport and attacks of inertia.
‘You’re an early starter, why not?’ Jackson said.
True, but then that was because sleep wasn’t always forthcoming. He stifled a yawn. He searched Jackson’s face for some trace of fatigue and was disappointed – there wasn’t a shadow blemishing his skin.
‘Mornings are nice and quiet for working,’ he said instead.
Jackson guffawed. ‘Not in my house. Evey was screaming the place down, then Noah.’
Mark had forgotten about the pregnancy. He usually fixated on her emerald eyes and not her swollen belly. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.’
‘Hettie, the poor girl, is shattered with constant feeding. Things are settling down now she’s past six weeks. Thankfully. Speaking of settling in, Hettie and I would like you to join us for a quiet evening meal at Fasleigh. I’ll email you the details. Some friends of mine to introduce you to.’
Mark bounced up onto the balls of his feet. The weight of the cardboard box forgotten for a moment. ‘That would be fantastic.’
The lift jolted and the doors opened.
Jackson’s lips smiled. His shrewd cornflower eyes didn’t. He possessed an aristocratic sharpness in all of his features; youthful good-looks chiselled with faint lines of wisdom.
His boss held the lift doors open while he gathered his possessions. ‘Thanks again, er, Mr Haynes. I look forward to it.’ Meeting Jackson Haynes in any circumstance was always a step in the right direction. At least so far. ‘Send my regards to Hettie.’
‘Will do.’ Jackson punched a button and disappeared behind the lift doors.
The invite to dinner was born out of a meeting months ago when Mark had indulgently pawed Hettie in a West End bar. Jackson hadn’t been there and she had arrived with a gaggle of girlfriends. A hen night or something. Mark had wandered in with a group of unremarkable work colleagues, who had subsequently made their excuses and left him glued to the big screen, pint in hand, watching a lengthy analysis of a football match. He had been a little drunk. Sidling up to Hettie, filled with optimism that he might pull such a gorgeous woman, he had failed to notice the wedding ring on her finger or Gary Maybank eyeballing him from the side-lines. She had bought him a drink and taken his business card, which had disappeared into her purse. As she had risen from the bar seat to re-join her friends, he put his arm around her waist to steady her. Gary had charged across the floor and rugby tackled him to the floor. Hettie had been mortified and berated Gary for leaping in when it wasn't necessary. Her apologies had embarrassed Mark because his intentions hadn't been honourable – he fancied her rotten. She was too sweet to hang out in those kinds of bars – Jackson owned a snazzy nightclub somewhere, didn’t he?
That was how he met Hettie. How he caught Jackson's attention and became her accountant. Gary might have been scolded by Hettie but later she told Jackson about the drunk in the bar who slotted his arm around his pregnant wife. Mark should have been sporting a black eye after the encounter, but instead everything snowballed into a peculiar job interview.
Mark bounded into his new office and nearly collided with the cleaner. She jumped and clutched a gloved hand to her chest.
‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t do that, creeping into rooms.’
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.’ He sidestepped the cleaning trolley.
She snorted. ‘Oh, not to worry. I’m just not use to anyone being about at this time of day.’ A waft of fresh bleach and stale tobacco followed her as she moved about the small office.
‘A necessity of your job.’ He placed the cardboard box and laptop case on the desk.
She was a talker – not what he wanted first thing in the morning. He opted for minimal responses. She clucked her tongue and bustled around the room with a duster. The dots on her sleeve blurred as she chased phantom cobwebs. The bare room was spotless.
‘This room has been clear for a couple of weeks. So it’s yours now?’
‘Yes, new job, so an early start. I expect it’ll wear off.’ Desperate for his routine caffeine fix, he followed her out of the door into the communal office in search of a drink.
She weaved the cleaning trolley between the cubicles, heading towards the service lift, and left him by the vending machine. He returned to his office and place the Styrofoam cup on the desk. Rummaging in the cardboard box, he removed a strip of shiny black plastic embossed with his name and slid it into the empty slot on the outside of the door:
MARK CLEWER
He stood back to admire it, then, returning to the office, he spotted picture hooks along one wall. He hung two framed pictures opposite his desk. One he’d brought with him from Manchester, the other was a more recent acquisition: a small watercolour painted specifically for him. The artist’s signature in the corner of the painting was barely visible: “H Haynes”.
At nine o’clock, Mark gave a briefing to his new colleagues
