LITMIR.BIZ

      A week had passed since news of Mitchell’s suicide. Since then, Richard hadn’t had a lot to do – perhaps Mitchell had been more effective at delegating work than he had been given credit for. This afternoon he sat at his desk watching everyone else work. The integration team were not at their desks. It was Thursday; they must be in the main meeting room. Rayhaan from pre-sales was screwing his face up at his screen. No doubt there was something about his power-point presentation that was causing him some concern. In pre-sales, you had to be careful of exactly what you said, and how you said it.

      Richard’s thoughts drifted back to Helsinki. That Helsinki trip had been quite a jaunt! He reminded himself of one particularly delightful event. A few days after meeting Mitchell, he had been sitting in the hotel bar minding his own business when some super-nice girl started chatting to him. They ended up getting blind drunk together. He recalled her showing him a tattoo on the top of her thigh, hitching up her skirt so he could read it (which was nice of her). He had a vague memory of rolling around in bed with her shortly afterwards. Unfortunately, he was so drunk he couldn’t remember any details. He had no idea if she was good in bed or not, and it was unlikely he had been, the state he was in. “Rolling around in bed” was probably an all-too-accurate description of what they’d done. All he could remember about her was she had long brown hair and green eyes. She had a name like Mandy, or Elaine, or Ella or Maureen, or something. Well, she had some sort of name. Most people do, especially girls. In the morning she was gone before he’d woken up. It was a shame. And it was also a shame he was stuck in London just now. When you were abroad, staying in a hotel and on decent expenses, things like that tended to happen. Well, maybe not quite like that; she really had been something.

      Time dragged for Richard. There were only a few other people around, all busy looking at their terminals. There was no one to talk to; they were not exactly transfixed by their terminals, but it was clearly their preferred way of interfacing with reality. Talking to any of them would be considered an annoying distraction. Even those of them that had been emailing him today.

      It was time to take another look at today’s emails. Nothing special there; the usual stuff about cakes in the kitchen for someone’s birthday. Richard knew the cakes were all gone by now. He had one himself just to be sociable, even though he didn’t know the person concerned. The core five lift was out of order… Don’t use the sales dept printer until further notice…

      There was an email from Mitchell. For half a second, Richard truly believed it was from Mitchell. He opened it with a sense of dread, as though he really was going to be hearing from beyond the grave.

      “Meet me at the bandstand in Hyde Park at three p.m. today.”

      There was nothing else. Just that. It couldn’t be Mitchell, of course. It was someone else who had access to his email account. Who could that be? No one else should have access to Mitchell’s account. It was almost more likely it was Mitchell.

      Richard looked at his phone to check the time – two p.m. He would need to hurry. Scrambling to get his laptop switched off and packed, then wriggling into his coat, he left the building, heading for Bank tube. Bank would be better than Tower Hill, though a longer walk; the Central Line was more reliable than the Circle Line. The Circle Line is often delayed because it’s the favourite one to commit suicide on.

      Luckily, the tube was running well. Richard made it to Hyde Park Corner in plenty of time. He was waiting at the bandstand by 2:45. Who am I waiting for? he wondered.

      It got to 3:05. No one had turned up. Richard had eagerly scrutinised every passer-by, trying to build a reason around that particular person; who they were, what their connection to Mitchell was, and why they would want to meet him. The girl in the mini-skirt who smiled at him would’ve been a particularly happy choice. Too good to be true.

      A couple of squat, rough-looking Bulgarians had passed by too, giving his imagination a scenario that was less pleasant to contemplate. Richard told himself to keep a grip on his imagination as they passed him by without incident, spitting out their conversation in guttural tones, completely unaware of Richard and the wild speculation they had caused him.

      Quite a lot of people passed by, with Richard’s imagination, now suppressed, failing to relieve the boredom of waiting. There were loads of people cycling in London these days. Richard knew he was not brave enough for anything like that. He was not courageous; not physically; most of the time not even mentally. If someone criticised his work as incorrectly documented or badly structured, he would agonise for ages. That was what made him a good techie – fear of doing something wrong – even something trivial.

      The girl in the mini-skirt was coming back. She looked vaguely familiar somehow, unless his memory was playing tricks from having noticed her ten minutes ago. She was in her late twenties, quite smartly dressed, with lovely, long blonde hair. Her shoulder bag looked expensive. All her clothes did, in fact. He speculated that perhaps she was Mitchell’s daughter. She looked a little too cheerful and rather too well dressed, even glamorous, for that though.

      “Hi,” she said. “ … Richard?”

      “Yes.”

      “Melanie. I sent the email from Andrew’s mobile. I didn’t know how else to get in touch.”

      Richard was still slightly taken aback. In spite of his speculation, he hadn’t expected the girl in the mini-skirt to be the one. He couldn’t get over the impression that he’d seen her before somewhere.

      “Have we met before?” he asked.

      “Possibly,” she said, more shyly than he expected, given her confident demeanour. But she continued without further explanation, “I have something for you. It’s from Andrew.”

      Richard realised the expression of doubt that had clouded the girl’s face must be a reflection of his own puzzlement.

      “You did know Andrew, didn’t you?” she asked.

      “Andrew, yes. We called him Mitchell though. Andy Mitchell. I didn’t know him all that well; only a few months. He was my boss.”

      There was a slightly awkward pause.

      “So who are you then?” Richard asked.

      “I was his girlfriend.” The vague idea they had already met persisted, but it was suppressed by another idea – Richard seemed to remember Mitchell had a wife. Yes, of course he had a wife. Well, it seems he had a girlfriend too. A hell of a girlfriend, in fact.

      “You seem quite cheerful for a girlfriend who’s just lost her nearest and dearest,” Richard said bluntly.

      “Ah.” Her eyes looked down, showing that she was rather contrite after all. She hesitated a moment and then, after brushing her hand elegantly through her hair, the cheerful look returned to her face and her eyes looked directly up into his. “I was more of a girlfriend experience.”

      “A girl…”

      “I work at Aphrodite’s Secret.” She snapped open her shoulder bag and took out a glossy card.

      “See,” she said, offering the card.

      Richard took the card. Out of a vague sense of embarrassment, he didn’t look too closely at it, but a brief glance at the shiny black card with gold lettering was enough to let him know what kind of a girlfriend Mitchell had had.

      “Anyway, take this too.” She handed him a padded envelope. “He told me not to open it, and I haven’t. He gave it to me with instructions to pass it on to you if anything happened to him. I had no idea that he had probably already decided to kill himself.”

      “Thanks.” Richard felt slightly abashed. For some reason, it seemed like she had acted with the greatest kindness to give him the envelope. Still unopened, too. In fact, such was the level of altruism she had exhibited, it was Richard’s turn to feel contrite; he suddenly realised she needn’t have bothered. He wondered why she had, in fact. Was that suspicious?

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