“Can I bring you another?” asks the waiter, and I nod. Meanwhile, my phone rings.
“Yes,” I say when I answer the call, seeing it’s my assistant.
“The lilies are white instead of black,” she says. “I checked the order form, and we checked black, but delivery is white. I alreadytried to get them elsewhere, but not at that amount. What do you want me to do?”
I take a deep breath. My assistant is a sweet girl, extraordinarily good at organising and coordinating, but she is too lenient and understanding for the hardcore business.
“Tell him he either has 8000 black lilies at the venue before the bell chimes five, or he can close his business. Victoria Fitzroy says hello.”
My assistant sighs and hangs up. I empty my Martini, grab my notebook and the woman’s bag, pay with a generous tip, and leave.
My valet, Henry, awaits me, holding the door open.
In the car, I take a look at the bag. If I am not entirely mistaken, that bag is hand-knitted as well. I unpack it and find nothing except a folder and school materials.
Mia Phillips,I read off the folder.3rd Year. Apparently, she is a primary school teacher. Fits the optics.
I take my phone.
“I need you to find someone for me,” I say when the ringing stops and Hailie, my woman for all things tracking, answers the call. “Her name is Mia Phillips, teaches 3rd year, somewhere in or around Greenwich. I need an address.”
A moment of silence follows.
“60 Hardy,” she says and hangs up. She was never one for many words, and her name is an alias, but I like the efficiency, at least in matters like this.
“You heard,” I say, and Henry sets the car in motion.
It takes us three minutes by car. I stare at the block of flats, its dull bricks offering no charm. Exactly what I imagined her to live in.
Henry opens the door, and I get out. As I walk up to the house, I know why I live in Belgravia. The dullness of life here would kill me.
I scan for her name. Interestingly enough, it is not the only one on it.
I ring.
Nothing happens.
I wait.
And then the buzzer goes off.
Not even an intercom.
I walk up two staircases of tedious boredom, the very same thatthe house is dipped in. When I reach the nasty orange flat door, I see a woman who isn’t the one the bag belongs to standing in the doorway. She also wears no trousers and a shirt with holes. I have landed in rat country.
“Oh my god,” gasps the woman. She apparently recognises me.
“Mia Phillips,” I say. “Is she there?”
“I—um,” the woman stammers and then shouts, “Miaaaaaa, are you home?”
Her voice resounds through the staircase like a never-ending canon blast.
“What’s up, Bella?” asks Mia from somewhere in the flat.
“Victory Fitzroy,” says the woman named Bella as if she can’t believe her own words. “At our door.”
“Who?” asks Mia, and Bella groans.
