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‘You’re back!’ screeched Jennifer, rushing over to give Emma a hug and a kiss on each cheek.
Emma looked over her shoulder at Ally and Gina, who had been shocked out of their despair. Ally started sticking her finger down her throat and only just missed being caught out as Jennifer spun around.
‘I told you to text me as soon as she arrived,’ she chided. Jennifer stood with her hands on her hips as she looked from one fixed smile to another. She was wearing a brightly patterned winter coat, its pinks and blues clashing dramatically with her ginger hair, which was cut into a neat bob with a sharp fringe. Ally had jokingly referred to Gina as a Barbie doll, but Jennifer had a far better claim to the title.
‘We wanted it to be a surprise,’ replied Ally, her fixed grin still fixed.
Jennifer turned back towards Emma. ‘I want you to know that I’m doing the best I can but I have been thrown in at the deep end.’
Emma wondered if she was actually expecting her to feel sorry for her. Jennifer had been cosseted and spoiled from an early age by her parents, and when her mum died, when she was a teenager, Mr Bannister had ensured that his daughter lacked for nothing to fill the gaping hole in her life. Working for a living was going to be quite a culture shock for her. ‘Yes, it’s not as easy as it looks,’ Emma said.
‘The girls are helping as much as they can and, of course, Alex is doing his best too. I just hope I don’t mess it all up.’
‘Speaking of the devil,’ muttered Ally as Alex entered the office.
‘Sorry I wasn’t here for you,’ he said, going over to give Emma a kiss on the cheek.
‘Nothing new there,’ Gina chipped in.
Emma gave both her friends a warning look. She had enough battles of her own without playing referee.
‘I’ll go make us all a cuppa,’ Gina said.
‘I’ll help,’ Ally added, and they both disappeared from view.
By the time they came back, Emma was busily tapping away at her keyboard, with Alex and Jennifer peering over her shoulder. Alex had already managed to clear her password, while she was in hospital, to access her computer, but he hadn’t been able to find the files he wanted.
‘It’s all down to my training at Alsop and Clover,’ Emma explained. ‘You can’t be too careful when it comes to security. All my important files are encrypted.’
‘Here, write down the passwords,’ Alex said, kissing the top of her head before pushing a notepad towards her.
Emma felt her chest tighten. The files he wanted held all of her ideas for future projects and campaigns, the ones that would help Jennifer fit a little more snugly into her shoes, not to mention help Alex do his job without even thinking. A voice in Emma’s head was telling her she was being manipulated, violated even. The voice was insistent, strained with barely contained fury, telling her she was a fool. Alex had rushed to her side, eventually, but not to help her. He had wanted to strip the assets, gathering up her work to pass off as his own and to impress Jennifer. The voice told her to stand up for herself.
But that voice wasn’t alone in her head; there was something else there too. She had promised Mr Bannister that she would help as much as she could. If there was a chance that she would never return to work, then all of her ideas would go to waste.
She picked up a pen and jotted down the passwords. Most of them, anyway. As Gina gently placed a mug of coffee in front of her, Emma glanced meaningfully at her watch.
‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll call it a day,’ she said.
Ally and Gina looked purposefully at Alex, but he was too engrossed in the document he had just opened to notice them. Ally cleared her throat and he eventually looked up. ‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘Do you want a lift?’
‘It’s alright, you’re busy. Besides, I could do with some fresh air.’ Emma had missed Alex, had missed being in the office too, but now she needed to escape.
‘Oh, OK then,’ he said. ‘Hey, how about we go out for dinner on Saturday?’
‘That would be nice,’ she said, but it was a lie that burned like acid at the back of her throat.
‘I’ll have had a chance to go through your files by then and I can pick your brain.’
‘You and everyone else,’ Emma replied under her breath.
There were plenty of hugs as she said, her goodbyes but it was Ally who insisted on seeing Emma out. ‘I can give you a lift, if you want,’ she offered.
‘I think my life’s in enough jeopardy already, don’t you?’
They both made a good attempt at a laugh. ‘My driving is getting better and I’ll take good care of your car until you’re ready to take it back.’ Emma had seen no point in having her car parked outside her mum’s apartment unused. Ally had borrowed it often enough so it seemed only logical to leave it at the house, and her friend had promised to be her chauffeur whenever she deigned to admit that she needed help.
‘I may never be ready. You do know that, don’t you?’ Emma told her as gently as she could.
‘We know. We just don’t want to believe it. You deserve better,’ she added.
Emma knew Ally was veering neatly towards another sensitive subject. ‘I know, but for now I have to work with what I’ve got.’
‘Really?’ asked Ally, unconvinced.
‘Really,’ confirmed Emma. ‘Although I may have to check the returns policy with my shopkeeper.’ When Ally gave her a worried look, Emma laughed and it was genuine this time. She gave her one final hug. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve not lost the plot just yet.’
As Emma pulled her coat around her and headed into the early afternoon sunshine, she realized that she was going to have to give some serious thought to the image of the hero she had created in her mind. His shining armour was looking distinctly tarnished. As her mind whirred with ideas of how she could mete out justice and revenge in equal measure, the impotence she had felt sitting at her desk was slowly replaced by a sense of power that made her fingers tingle.
Emma’s trip to the office had been far more physically exhausting than she had imagined. She could feel the pressure building up inside her head so she abandoned her plans to start writing and spent two days recovering. By Friday morning she was crawling the walls of the apartment but still she couldn’t escape into her imaginary world. Her self-imposed break had given her time to doubt the direction her story should be taking and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the apartment was fuelling her writer’s block. She knew she didn’t have time to waste prevaricating; time wasn’t on her side so she packed away her laptop, picked up the pill box her mum had prepared for the day and called a cab.
The Traveller’s Rest was on a leafy avenue not far from Sefton Park on the boundary of Liverpool city centre. Her sister’s restaurant had a bohemian feel to it with bare timber floors and mismatched tables and chairs. To the front, there were floor-to-ceiling windows with flowing crimson drapes and, to the rear, rows of intimate booths.
Weekday mornings were never a busy time for the restaurant but at first glance it appeared closed and, as Emma pushed open the door, she half expected it to be locked. The temperature in the bistro was only marginally warmer than outside where winter had started to bite. There were two tables occupied so if Louise had been relying on warm bodies to heat up the place she was going to have to recruit more staff. As it was, Steven, the only waiter on duty, was at a loss with what to do with himself. He was keeping one watchful eye on his customers, ready to pounce at the slightest suggestion that they needed something, and the other on the door. He looked briefly