‘Where’s Layla’s office?’ he asked the first secretary he saw.
She didn’t know. ‘Try the next floor up,’ she told him.
He did. Picked up a few leaflets from a desk and sauntered through with them in his hands. No one stopped him. He asked another girl the same question.
‘Over there,’ she said.
At lunchtime, when Layla Carter went out with her minders, he got one of his little helpers to leave a gift, and a little something extra in her Filofax.
There was an atmosphere so thick in the office that you could cut it with a knife. Resentment festered beneath the surface of every water-cooler conversation. Nobody spoke to Layla. But she was determined to tough it out. They’d mellow. She wasn’t sure Ellie would, though. They’d got into a screaming match as Layla was going out the door.
‘What harm can I come to?’ Layla had demanded. ‘The minute I move, an army of heavies trails behind me. Dad’s boys and the Barolli boys too. They’re watching me like bloody hawks. I’m safe as houses.’
But despite her bold words, she didn’t feel safe. The journey to work was taken in a limo with one of Alberto’s heavies at the wheel. Another one followed her to the door. She saw a muscle-bound suit watching her from across the street as she entered the office building. Everything about the men crowding around her reminded her that she’d stepped sideways into a dark and dangerous world.
However, the minute she got to her desk – the atmosphere notwithstanding – she settled down to work, and was soon absorbed, soon calmer.
So what if all the office banter seemed to be directed towards anyone but her? She was happy enough, making neat columns of figures into perfect sense.
Then Graham Etchingham, her head of department, walked by her desk, and paused.
‘Have you brought in the doctor’s certificate?’ he asked.
Layla shook her head. ‘Couldn’t get an appointment. Sorry.’
‘Make sure you bring it tomorrow.’
‘I will,’ she said, and he moved on.
He didn’t ask if she was better now. Didn’t give a shit, she knew. She was just a number cruncher. Who could be replaced, in an instant, by some other hopeful, job-hungry number cruncher.
Layla knew that Ellie would tell Mum. And Mum would tell Dad, and Alberto, and they would all kick off like crazy. For now, though, she was happy. She could almost – but never quite – forget what had happened, what she had done, how awful it was.
Lunchtime, she had arranged to meet up with Precious in the park. She nipped to the shops for a sandwich and a drink, aware of the minders dogging her footsteps.