‘How have you been?’
‘Fine. Just fine.’
‘I read about your grandfather. Nearly wrote to you but I didn’t know your, er, circumstances.’ He looked at her askance and she shook her head.
‘I’m not attached,’ she said, then hated herself for admitting it to him.
‘Look, I have to run, I’m afraid. Could I . . . call you, maybe?’
‘I . . .’
The grey suit was approaching once more.
He reached out a hand to touch her cheek but stopped himself a whisper away from her skin.
‘Zoe . . . I . . .’ The pain was visible in his eyes. ‘Goodbye.’ With a resigned wave he was gone.
She stood in the crowded foyer, oblivious to everything except him walking away from her, leaving her for matters that took priority – just as they always had and always would. Yet her treacherous heart rejoiced.
Zoe stumbled back to the ladies’ powder room to recover her composure. As she stared at her reflection in the mirror, she could see that the light in her eyes, which had flickered off so abruptly over ten years ago, had started burning once more.
Marcus was kicking his heels outside in the foyer. ‘Blimey, youdohave a problem. Going to make it home?’
Zoe smiled and linked her arm through his. ‘Of course I am.’
The White Knight
The knight, with its L-shaped moves, is the most unpredictable of pieces
5
Joanna was late again. Jutting both elbows out, she jabbed her way through the press of bodies on the bus and leapt onto the pavement at Kensington High Street just before the doors shut. Passing the identikit businessmen in black and grey suits and holding designer briefcases, she broke into a run, the cold morning air biting at her skin. Checking her watch, Joanna upped her pace. It had been a while since she had gone for a run, choosing instead to sit on the sofa and eat ice cream withEastEnderson the telly. At home in Yorkshire, she used to run five miles a day – up hills no less – and although she had tried to keep up the regimen in London, it simply wasn’t the same. She missed the pure air of the moors, the glimpses of hares and peregrine falcons. The most exciting wildlife to see in London was a pigeon that still had both of its legs.
Joanna arrived wheezing at the front of theMorning Mailbuilding. She stumbled through the glass doors and flashed her pass at Barry, the security guard, seated behind the desk.
‘Wotcher, Jo. Cutting it fine, aren’t you?’
She gave him a grimace and leapt into the open lift, hoping that she wasn’t sweating too much. At last, at ten past the hour, she collapsed at her overflowing desk and searched amongst the paperwork for her keyboard. She glanced up – no one seemed to have noticed her late appearance. Switching on her computer, she dumped the newspapers, magazines, old copy, unanswered letters and photos in her in-tray. Telling herself she’d stay late one night this week to clear things up, she took an apple out of her bag and began to open her post.
Dear Miss Haslem . . .
‘Spelt wrongly,’ she muttered.
I wanted to write and thank you for the nice piece you did about my son who had his Airfix model plane glued to his cheek. I was wondering whether I could ask you for a copy of the photograph that appeared with the article . . .
Joanna put the letter in the in-tray, bit into her apple and opened the next one, an invitation to the launch of a ‘revolutionary’ kind of sanitary towel. ‘Pass,’ she murmured, throwing that into the in-tray too.
The next was a large, creased brown envelope, addressed in spidery writing so indecipherable she was amazed it had even reached her. She tore it open and took out its contents. There were two further envelopes inside, with a piece of notepaper clipped to them.
Dear Miss Haslam,
I am the lady you helped home from the church a few days ago. I would like you to come to my flat urgently as I don’t have long now. I have enclosed two envelopes for you in the meantime, just in case. Keep them close to you at all times until we meet again. I’ll have more for you when you come.
I am warning you, this is dangerous, but I feel you are a young woman of integrity, and the story must be told. If I have already gone, then you must talk to the White Knight’s Lady. It’s all I can tell you now. I pray you are in time.
I am waiting for you here.
I trust you, Joanna.
