Singing in the Wilderness (6 page)

Fortunately for her peace of mind, Stephanie didn’t know how frightened she looked. ‘Someone must have broken in—’

‘Has anything been taken?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she managed to say. ‘They’ve had all the files out, though. Some of them are rather confidential and we’ve always kept them locked.’ She stood her ground, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘I have the only keys. My father gave me his set yesterday
morning
.’
She thought that by stressing the word she had made things worse than they were. ‘I mean, I locked them up myself and I had all the keys in my possession then. The files haven’t been forced. I don’t understand it!’

With a single look he sent the girls running back to work and even Gloria and Fatemeh began to gather themselves up as though they meant to go and do some work, albeit rather reluctantly.

Cas shut the door with a snap, almost catching their skirts in it in his hurry.

‘Now, Miss Black, tell me all about it,’ he invited her.

‘I can’t understand it!’ she repeated.

‘It would seem pretty obvious that someone else has a set of keys,’ he said.

‘But they haven’t!’

‘You’re sure of that?’

She nodded helplessly. ‘I made sure of it because—well, because the interchange between my father and our head office was best not seen by too many others. The other confidential files are the records of all employees working in Iran and other things like that. Nothing that would be of any use to anyone outside the firm.’

‘But it might be useful to someone inside the company?’

‘It could be,’ she admitted. ‘We only just managed to get this contract and the delays haven’t helped us. The exact state of play would be of interest to any of our competitors. We could even lose the contract if we fall down on any of the terms of the agreement.’

‘You’re telling me!’ His tone was wry, but not unreasonable. ‘You think that’s the most likely explanation, Stephanie
?
’

‘Yes.’ She flushed, moving a pile of papers on her desk from one place to another. ‘No. My father could have
taken my keys yesterday afternoon when I was out.’ She gave him a shy look, remembering vividly their meeting in the Maidan. ‘I left them on my bedside table. I picked them up there this morning.’

‘It would be one way of getting his own back on the company,’ Cas said slowly. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it of a man like Desmond Black, however. You’d better get someone else to clear up in here. I want you with me this morning.’ He put out a hand and lifted her chin with a single finger. ‘Don’t look like that, my dear. We’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later, I promise you that.’

‘I may not want to know,’ she whispered.

‘That’s a risk you’ll have to take.’ He looked at her, a smile gleaming in the back of his eyes. ‘By the way, how popular are you with your colleagues?’

‘I get on with them all right.’ She escaped his touch with a jerk of her head. ‘They wouldn’t have done this because of me!’

‘I hope not.’ He said it quietly, almost like a prayer, and she shivered, wondering if she could possibly have inspired that much hate amongst the people she worked with. It was no better than the alternative that her father had done this to conceal some letter from his successor’s and perhaps her own eyes.

‘Fatemeh is sending up someone to help restore order, but I shall have to do most of it myself,’ she began to explain the obvious to him in an attempt to escape the implications of her thoughts. ‘Some of the files are confidential.’

He grinned at her. ‘You’re itching to get your fingers on that mess, aren’t you? It offends you to see everything upside down like that, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose it does,’ she admitted.

‘Poor Stephanie! At least I can be pretty sure that you didn’t do it! If you had, you’d have left everything as neat as ever, wouldn’t you
?
’

‘Would I
?
’ She opened her eyes wide, a little surprised at herself.

‘Of course you would! Do you really have to put it to rights straight away
?
I want you beside me when I make my presence felt this morning. Lock your door and leave it until later.’

‘Until this afternoon?’ she mused. ‘I could do that, I suppose.’

‘If you have to go on after hours I’ll come and give you a hand,’ he offered. ‘Will that suit you?’

It was ridiculous to feel so happy at the prospect, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she liked being with him, no matter what the circumstances. ‘I expect I’ll have finished before then,’ she said soberly. ‘One thing is certain, I can’t do any work in that room until I have got it back in order!’

He looked amused. ‘Come along then, Miss Black. We’d better go and face life in my office where there’s no mess to offend you. Will you lock the door, or shall I
?
’ There followed a morning that was quite different from any that Stephanie had spent working for her father. Where her father had hesitated, compromised, and delayed making any final decision until he had had time to think through the matter, Cas was quick to evaluate any problem and snapped out the solution he had decided on, passing on to the next item almost before she was aware. By lunchtime they had completed as much work as she usually did in a month and she felt as though a steamroller had passed right over her.

‘Right,’ Cas said at last. ‘That seems to be all for now. I shan’t expect those letters until tomorrow, but normally I like to sign everything before I go home at night. You’d better go and have some lunch now, Miss Black.’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He tipped his chair back on to two legs, watching her through half-closed eyes. She wished he wouldn’t. She was sure the chair would collapse under his weight and she didn’t like being looked at in that way, just as though she had a smut on her nose! She passed a harassed hand through her hair and wondered why that seemed to amuse him. She took a quick step away from him when he stood up, but she hadn’t a hope of escaping his long arm.

‘Why are you in such a tizzy
?
’ he grinned at her. He rucked up her hair, making it stand on end, with the pleased look of a small boy. ‘It does you good to get mussed up once in a while. What are you doing for lunch
?
’

She smoothed down her hair with an indignant hand, making good her escape as fast as she could. But when she shut the door behind her, she could hear him laughing at her and she found she was smiling herself. What a strange man he was! One moment working with a speed and precision that bore witness to his dedication and the next as playful as a child without a care in the world!

‘Oh, Stephanie, I
like
your hair like that!’ Gloria ran down the passage, catching up with her. ‘A half-fringe really suits you! When did you decide to have it done like that?’

They disappeared into the cloakroom together and Stephanie made a little rush towards the nearest looking-glass before she had to answer the other English girl.

‘I
like
it!’ she exclaimed, marvelling at her reflection.

‘Why not?’ Gloria shrugged. ‘It makes you look softer, more approachable. I suppose you feel you can relax a bit now that it isn’t your father you’re working for. You always looked so severe and devoted to the cause! If I’d been you, I’d have chucked it long ago! I like to live my own life.’

But if she kept it, would Cas recognise what he had inadvertently created? Would he even notice? She touched the fringe he had given her with tentative fingers, pushing it into a better shape.

‘I like it!’ she declared again.

‘Good for you,’ Gloria retorted, rapidly losing interest. ‘Talking about living you own life, where are you living now
?
I suppose the big man wanted your father’s apartment for himself?’

Stephanie nodded. ‘I have a smaller place in the same building—just a room really, but it’s quite nice.’

Gloria turned speculative eyes on to her. ‘Bit of a change for you all the same. You’ll notice the difference when you have to pay for everything yourself. I thought when we first arrived it would be fun having another English girl around, but you believe in keeping yourself to yourself, don’t you
?
Shall we see more of you now that you haven’t got Daddy to r
un
home to every evening
?
’

‘Possibly.’

‘Well, I wish you would!’ Gloria went on. ‘There’s not much a girl can do on her own here. The Persian girls have their mothers after them if they so much as smile
at a man on their way home, and their families have hysterics if they’re half an hour late, or anything like that. I’ve been downright lonely since I’ve been here.’

‘Oh, Gloria, I’m sorry. I never thought!’ Stephanie said quickly. ‘You should have said something before. You could at least have come home sometimes with Father and myself.’

‘Thanks very much! That wasn’t quite what I hand in mind! Now if your father had been more like Mr. Ruddock I might have considered it! Why do you suppose they chose an American to run things
?
I thought this was a strictly English contract! Though he’s dishy enough for me whatever he is! Did you ever see such a huge man, and handsome with it?’

‘I suppose he is,’ Stephanie said, as if she had just discovered the fact.

‘You don’t mean you haven’t noticed!’ Gloria expostulated. ‘Come to think of it, you might not have done. I suppose living with Daddy rather cramped your style where men are concerned?’

‘I’ve never thought about it,’ Stephanie answered truthfully.

‘You may not have thought of it before,’ Gloria observed with relish, ‘but working with him every day, you’d better wake up and think about it now! What I’d give to have your opportunities!’

Stephanie thought rather less highly of her opportunities that afternoon when she unlocked the door of her office and began to take stock of the damage that had been done to her filing system. She cleared a space in the middle of the room and sat on the floor, putting the papers in neat piles all round her. Nothing seemed to be missing, but then nothing was in its right place either. It all seemed to be a completely meaningless bit of vandalism, and she would have dismissed it as such if it hadn’t been for the planning that must have been involved in getting hold of the keys to the files.

Fatemeh put her head round the door quite early in the afternoon.

‘I’ve come to help you myself,’ she announced. ‘There’s been too much talk about this downstairs already and I don’t want to encourage it. What shall I
d
o first?’

Stephanie pointed out the various piles that could be safely filed away. ‘I’d rather you left the last two to me,’ she said. ‘I want to make absolutely sure that there’s nothing missing from the confidential files.’

Fatemeh nodded. She was a pretty girl, intelligent, with a bright perky way of speaking that disguised her essentially placid good nature. It had taken a lot of persuasion for her family to allow her to work for a foreign company and she was always met at the door by one of the maids of the house who, as closely veiled in a
chador
as her young mistress, escorted her to and from her home daily.

‘Do you know why it happened
?
’ the Persian girl asked as she settled to her task. ‘Has it to do with your father?’

‘I don’t know,’ Stephanie admitted. ‘If my father had wanted any of these letters, he only had to ask, or he could have got it himself. Why all this
?
’

Fatemeh smiled across at her. ‘I like your father, which is why I haven’t told anyone else, but he was here yesterday afternoon, I saw him myself.’

‘You
saw
him? But what did he say?’

Fatemeh shrugged. ‘I said I was sorry he was leaving and he said he was too. Naturally, I didn’t ask him what he was doing in his own daughter’s office.’ The Persian girl lowered her eyes and blushed. ‘He did say that it was all a misunderstanding that he had to go back to England, but that he would be back soon enough. He said I was a good girl and I was to look after you until he came back to Isfahan. He was afraid Mr. Ruddock got ideas about you!’

‘And what are you supposed to do if he does?’ Stephanie asked dryly.

‘I can always be there
if you need me. He is intimidating, this Mr. Ruddock, don’t you think? He is so large!’

‘Gloria doesn’t seem to think so!’

Fatemeh laughed. ‘Gloria doesn’t have to work for him!’ She pursed up her lips thoughtfully. ‘You must not let Gloria make you do things you would rather not. She is English like yourself, but not at all the same. I would not take
her
home to meet my family.’