The rest of the room was dusty but reasonably neat, shabby carpet, painted filing cabinet, a set of three dining chairs. A stack of reference books on a shelf, phone and answerphone, a pretty ceramic plate wall clock the only personal touch.
I tidied up the desk, switched the answerphone on and prepared to leave. I was at the Dobsons’ front door when I heard my office phone. I clattered down the stairs, flung myself at the desk and yanked the answerphone connection out of the socket, interrupting my recorded voice in mid-greeting. Pressing the off button never does any good; it’s one of those slow response – maybe I’ll do it this time maybe I won’t – models.
‘Hello. Sal Kilkenny Investigations, Sal Kilkenny speaking.’
‘Oh.’ Confusion at the other end of the line. ‘Erm, I just thought…’ Laugh. Young, male, nervous. Either the answerphone, or the fact that I was a woman, had thrown him. Most people think Sal’s a man. My Yellow Pages ad is carefully worded. It says female detectives available but doesn’t imply it’s a one-woman show. No point in advertising for abusive calls and attracting all the headcases.
More nervous laughter.
‘How can I help?’ Not ‘Can I?’ but ‘How can I?’. Make the client confident you can do the job.
‘Well, it’s my wife. Do you…look, I’ve never…I haven’t any idea what you charge or even if…’
Wish he’d spit it out. ‘I can offer an initial appointment, no obligation. You can discuss the matter with us, find out the sort of services we can offer and take it from there. Or I can offer free advice now if you want to talk about it over the phone.’
‘I see. Erm…well. Oh, shit, sorry.’ He hung up. Caught in the act, I’d guess.
I plugged in the answerphone again hoping it wouldn’t take revenge at sudden disconnection by playing up and taking half-messages again, refusing to playback or to play the announcement, confusing people with uncomfortable silences and sequences of beeps. I sometimes spent hours searching for fragments of communication, whizzing the tape back and forth. I suppose the answerphone matched the window blind really. Crap. And not a true reflection of the quality of work I could offer.
Positive thinking.
After all, two clients in one day can’t be bad, even if one did ring off.
The drizzle looked set to run for days, the sky was dense and sullen. I did my best to ignore it as I walked up to school to collect Maddie and Tom.
‘We had wet play again,’ Maddie complained. ‘I hate wet play.’
‘But you play inside, don’t you? Games and things?’