The Silent Ones (16 page)

He took a deep breath, moved into the room, walked to the large grey cabinet and pulled the key from his hair, inserted it in the lock and turned.

It opened easily, but it screeched on its rails to an alarming degree. He ran back to the door and looked out, but the corridor was empty. A moment later he was back with the files, working at a frenzied pace. The first drawer contained files labelled A-C. He pulled open the middle drawer. D contained five files, none of them Olivia’s. He found O. It wasn’t there either.

He forced himself to listen for noise in the corridor, then opened the bottom drawer. There were a selection of unlabelled files, but none of them were hers.

He shut the cabinet and locked it. He put the key back in his hair. He wanted to scream with frustration.

He cleaned the rest of the room, then did two more offices. He put the ‘cleaning in progress’ sign up outside the women’s toilets and began to push the trolley through the swing door. He saw Helen walking towards him from the end of the corridor. She looked serious and didn’t acknowledge him.

He turned away, full of resentment about the key, as if the missing file was her fault. She didn’t move along.

‘Can you come in here for a moment please?’ She opened the door to the women’s toilets and disappeared inside.

Darren looked up and down the corridor, a dull panic beginning to throb in his jaw. Had he been found out, was she about to confront him? He wondered wildly for a moment whether the filing cabinet had been alarmed and he was about to be unmasked, whether he could run for the exit, but knew it was hopeless. He followed her in like a man approaching the gallows.

She was leaning against the sinks it was his job to wipe. ‘Shall we go for that drink after all?’

‘Eh?’

She made a little movement of her head that made her hair fall over an eye. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, Darren, you made your feelings clear a few days ago.’ She smiled, but there was a tension cutting through the edges.

Darren grinned broadly with relief. He wasn’t about to be caught at all. He let out a large breath of air, freed to fight another day. But now he was caught in another net. He needed to let her down gently, not antagonise her. She would be a formidable enemy to make. He looked around, hoping the right words would magically be conjured from white floor tiles and strip lighting. He saw her red briefcase by her feet, the edge of a brown file like the ones in the cabinet in her office just visible inside.

Maybe Olivia’s file was in there, or at her house. ‘Er, yeah. OK.’

She gave a small laugh. ‘Guys your age are so articulate.’

‘Say what?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Her voice was light and playful. ‘So where would you like to go?’ Darren’s mind was a complete blank. Where did you take a woman old enough to be your mother? She smiled again, humouring him. ‘We could meet in Barnes, there’s a pub near the river. We’re unlikely to bump into anyone we know there. How does tonight sound?’ He nodded. ‘I’ll meet you in the Prince Albert, 8.30 p.m.,’ she went on.

There was silence, Darren just staring at her because he didn’t know what to say.

She moved past him to the door. ‘Don’t be late. I find that annoying.’ And then she was gone.

T
he pub in Barnes was big and done up in a style that tried to suggest quirky country house but in fact made it look like every boozer in the Home Counties. It was very, very expensive. Darren had travelled there on the bus after wolfing down a leftover meal of cold chicken and oven chips, but Helen insisted on taking a table and having a steak that cost £18, so he drank and watched her eat and drink. She drank a lot – and talked even more – but seemed to stay sober all night. He could see where the line of her wedding ring had left a pale imprint on her finger.

It was a lot of fun talking to her. She was so refreshing after the usual girls he took out – not that there were very many of them – and she asked lots of questions about his course and what he wanted to do with his life. Normally the girls he dated talked about themselves all the time. She insisted on paying and he didn’t stop her. ‘Let me spend my money my way,’ she said, brandishing a black credit card.

They came out of the pub and he wondered what was going to happen now. She hailed a black cab. ‘Come back to mine, I want to show you my etchings. I’m being serious, I really do have etchings.’

Darren was up for anything and as the taxi coasted to a stop he gallantly pulled the door open for her. ‘Hey, this door opens backwards.’

She stopped for a second and smiled. ‘Darren, is this your first time in a black cab?’

He shrugged, feeling a little ashamed. ‘You know what they used to say, no taxis ever went south of the river.’ She watched indulgently as he spent the next few minutes playing with all the buttons inside the cab.

Helen lived in a block of flats so modern there was suede lining the walls by the lift. ‘You can run your hands over it, it feels nice,’ she said. He did, and his fingers left a tracery of lines in the surface, as if a ghost had passed this way. When she unlocked the door to her flat he saw that the living area had floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of the river.

‘Wow, this is cool.’ He jumped across the back of a corner sofa and landed on the cushions.

‘We’ve been here years. Couldn’t possibly afford to buy it now of course.’

He lay back and stared out at a balcony with pot plants and a wooden table and chairs, the lights on the river winking in the tide. How he’d love to light a big fat joint and sit here with CJ watching the boats slide by. ‘It’s gone up about a gazillion times. Darren?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Sorry, am I boring you?’

Darren got off the sofa – fast. ‘It’s amazing. Can I have a look around?’

She smiled and waved at him to go ahead as she pulled glasses from a cupboard and bent down for something. ‘What about a drink?’ she called as he headed for the rooms off the living area. ‘What do you want?’

‘I dunno. Beer?’

Her bedroom had piles of colour-coordinated cushions on a bed shaped like a sleigh and yards of fitted wardrobes with dustless, flat fronts. It was so different from his mum’s junkyard rail where her dresses and blouses and shoes lay piled up and disorganised.

There was an en suite wet room and in another part of the flat a bathroom with a sunken bath with a river view; and next to that the prize – a study. He hunted on the desk for files, but it was all immaculate and ordered. He spotted a filing cabinet.

He came back into the kitchen-cum-living room and took the beer she had poured into a glass for him. ‘Do you like that piece?’ She indicated a large modernist artwork hanging above a fake fire.

Darren felt the burden of having studied art – it meant everyone wanted your opinion on what they had bought, like a French person always being asked to recommend a wine.

‘It’s great,’ he ventured cautiously. To him it was bland, uninteresting work from the 1980s. There was a pause. She was expecting something more incisive than that, he realised. ‘There’s really great movement in it,’ he added, then to stop being asked to comment further he walked over to the window and stared down at the river. ‘Life must seem so different here from what you do at work.’

‘The job’s challenging, that’s for sure.’

‘So what do you do to get away from it all?’

She came towards him, a glass of wine in her hand. ‘I can certainly think of something.’

He grinned at her and she grinned back. ‘Well, this is very Mrs Robinson,’ she said slowly.

‘What?’

She gave a small laugh and sighed, enjoying herself. ‘Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft?’ He frowned and shrugged. But he liked the way she was standing, arm round her stomach. He took a long slug of beer. He wanted to touch her, smell her.

He put her glass of wine down on the floor and reached out and kissed her. She smelled of expensive cream and her hair was glossy and smooth. She was a great kisser.

She broke off, flustered. ‘You seemed so shy and timid when you started at Roehampton, but now I see you’re not at all like that.’

He put his hands under her thighs, carried her across the room and shoved her up against the kitchen island. ‘Hello,’ she said.

He started to pull her shirt over her head, to feel her body. ‘You look great,’ he said, pulling back to appreciate her.

‘I must do more exercise,’ she muttered. He kissed her neck, feeling her skin. His fingers felt nice running over the bumps of the moles and sunspots on her back.

They eventually fell backwards over the corner sofa. She writhed beneath him as she pulled off his T-shirt. ‘God, look at that,’ she giggled as she laid her palms on his abs. Darren looked down, nonplussed. ‘You have no idea how refreshing that is.’ She looked like she was touching something she shouldn’t. She was enjoying herself and he loved her for that and they tussled and play-fought on the sofa and then on the floor as they shed their clothes.

She began giving him a blow job and pleasure exploded across his body. It was true what CJ said about older women: the head they gave was ultimate. The river distorted into a beautiful mirage of lights outside the windows as he gave in to the sensations, but she stopped and grabbed his hand and they staggered through into her bedroom. Her bush was as big as a salad plate. She pulled him into her and soon she was coming, loudly and lustily and without being coy.

Darren lay back, Helen lying in his armpit as he stroked her hair. ‘God, that was great.’

‘I needed that.’ She giggled.

Darren smiled. It was great here with Helen, like he’d been transported to a movie set. He could be someone else, step out of his usual life. He wanted to pull out a joint and smoke it with her, in this ridiculously large and comfy bed. Maybe she’d make him eggs in the morning.

But now she was sitting upright, slapping him on the knee. ‘Chop chop, I have work I need to do.’

‘What, now?’

She stood and stretched, energised and invigorated. ‘Get dressed, you can catch a late bus back south.’

He struggled to his elbows. ‘Can’t I stay here? We can splash in that tub.’

She looked at him indulgently. ‘Fun’s over, for now.’

She headed across the room to the bathroom and he heard the shower start.

A volley of rain hit the plate glass window. He was downcast, his zenned-out mood evaporating. He got up, scratching, his mind beginning to drag itself from pleasure towards why he had come here in the first place. She was a product woman; he’d noticed that the bathroom was loaded with lotions, potions, scrubs and masks. Her shower would take time.

Guilt momentarily rooted him to the spot. He’d had a great night and it felt wrong to be abusing her trust by poking about in her private things; but then he heard his parents shouting at each other, the pain of loss permanently etched on his mum’s face, and he ran through into her office.

Her filing cabinet wasn’t locked. The drawers opened silently and he began to rifle through a series of hanging files. They were labelled: insurance, car, flat, employment, stuff belonging to Joel. It was all in order but it was Helen’s life, not the lives of her patients.

He checked the desk drawers but found nothing useful, hunted for her briefcase, which was sitting on top of the kitchen island, but the brown file he’d seen earlier that day contained only copies of a medical journal. He was frustrated at drawing such a blank. He stepped back into the bedroom and heard the shower go off; he jumped back on to the bed as she came out of the bathroom, a towel with tassels wrapped round her head. ‘You look lovely.’

‘Thanks. Come on, clothes on.’

He got up and reluctantly pulled on his pants. ‘What work do you have to do now? Isn’t it all at Roehampton?’

‘There’s simply not enough time to complete everything there, not that the powers that be think that. So I catch up on paperwork here.’

‘Isn’t that a security risk? If the files get lost or something?’

She gave a defensive movement. ‘I keep them in a safe, it’s all strictly controlled, totally above board. Now, run along you little animal.’ She came over and traced her finger down his chest. ‘Gorgeous, simply gorgeous.’ She started tickling him but her nails felt sharp and he didn’t like it.

She saw him out and he took a last lingering look at the view and at her. She kissed him on the cheek and then she shut the door.

It was raining harder by the time he got through the lobby and out into the windswept courtyard. It took him an hour and a half on two night buses to get home.

D
arren cycled to Roehampton the next morning feeling cloaked in failure. He was getting nowhere fast. His bad mood intensified when Kamal caught sight of him and hustled him into the locker room. When his boss was sure they were alone, he let rip. ‘You, fucker, need to be gone by the end of the week. Resign. The security review they’re doing in the wake of your love-fuck with Duvall makes it too risky for you and for me. Leave, or I’ll make you.’

Darren was exhausted and frustrated by his failure to find anything at Helen’s and was in no mood to be shoved about. ‘I’m a Level Two.’ Darren tapped his chest. ‘I have a sub team to organise.’ This in reality involved nothing more than ticking a box on a sheet of paper, but that wasn’t going to stop him trying to pull rank on Kamal.

Kamal muttered something in Arabic, then said, ‘You are so out of order—’

‘Don’t hassle me again, I’ll tell the governor I don’t have the correct forms – I’ll be sacked, yeah, but you’ll be on a boat back to Tangiers.’

Kamal narrowed his eyes. Darren sensed that this was war, and there could be no prisoners. ‘You’re on Newman ward,’ Kamal said as he walked away.

Darren’s anger grew. Another day with no opportunity to see Olivia, Helen or the secrets in Helen’s office.

He was buzzed into the facility and began to clean down the long, isolated corridors. He no longer thought about what colours he would paint the walls if he had the chance, he didn’t draw surf on the floor to pass the time. He ran over everything Olivia had ever said to him, schemed about how he could be more proactive, glean more slivers of information. Eventually he was buzzed into the dayroom where he had first met Olivia. There was a group of inmates there but as he feared there was no Olivia, she would be sitting in a locked room somewhere far away from here.