Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection

‘Unstable!’ He glared at her, eyes wide with astonishment. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘She’s not like her usual self, sir.’ Wanting it over with, Alice gabbled it all out in one breath. ‘She was really upset when she came in … bad-tempered … shouting at everybody. And now she’s shut in her office, pacing the floor, talking to herself. And she won’t come out, or even talk to anybody.’

‘I see.’ This wasn’t like the Lilian he knew – bright, organised and efficient. ‘Has she done any work since she’s been in?’ Normally she was straight onto it.

‘No, sir. She went directly to her office, and hasn’t come out since.’

‘Has she asked you to do anything on her behalf … or ordered a résumé of what’s been happening in her absence?’

‘No, sir. Nothing like that.’

‘How long has she been in?’

Alice couldn’t be exact. ‘About an hour … or thereabouts.’

Alice hated having to run to him like this, behind Lilian’s back. But she was concerned. ‘It’s not like her, sir. She’s usually so talkative and she works harder than any of us.’ She cautioned herself. ‘As hard as any of us, I mean …’

He seemed not to have heard her self-condemning remark. Instead he was deep in thought. ‘Mmm.’ He found it all very disconcerting. ‘It sounds as if she might well have come back to work a bit too soon.’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘Right then!’ Picking up the telephone, he asked the operator for a number. ‘I need to return an important call, then I’ll be right down.’ He eyed her with suspicion, and a hint of humour. ‘This isn’t a ploy between the two of you to get her more time off work, is it?’

‘Oh, no, sir, and I’d be very grateful if you didn’t tell her I’ve been up here talking to you. I’m only looking out for her. She’s been very good to me.’

He could see she was genuine in her concern. ‘And you’re a good friend to her. I hope she realises that.’ He reassured her that she had done the right thing in coming to him.

‘How will you approach Lilian, without her knowing you’re checking up on her?’

He patted the side of his nose. ‘I wouldn’t be successful in business if I didn’t know a trick or two.’

Downstairs, her colleague was waiting as Alice got to the bottom of the steps. ‘What did he say?’

‘He’s coming down.’

‘Good. She’s still acting weirdly,’ she said. ‘I knocked on her door and she told me to go away … said she didn’t want to be disturbed. She’s not answering her phone either … it’s been ringing for ages.’

It was still ringing when Mr Martin came down.

A glance through the window only confirmed what Alice had said; Lilian was seated at her desk, muttering to herself and smiling, as if amused by a private joke.

Tapping on the door, he went straight in. Having brought a sheaf of paperwork as an excuse to check out Alice’s worries, he placed it on the desk before her. ‘Glad to see you back,’ he said with a bright smile. ‘Fit and ready for work, are you?’

Lilian nodded.

‘Right then, here’s the surveyor’s report for that Brighton hotel. I need you to get onto it straight away … four copies in all, and a covering letter for each.’ He pointed to the papers. ‘I need them back on my desk within the hour.’

Going out of the door, he turned with a compliment. ‘This whole damned place has gone to pot since you’ve been gone.’

Lilian didn’t look up. ‘I’ll deal with it straight away, sir.’

Emerging from the office, he saw Alice waiting anxiously round the corner. ‘She seems fine,’ he told her. ‘In fact she’s in there now working on a surveyor’s report.’

Alice shook her head. ‘No, sir, she isn’t. Look!’

Curious, he turned, and was shocked to see Lilian standing over the waste-paper bin and slowly tearing up the report. Bit by bit she began dropping it into the bin. ‘Hey!’ Going at a run, he burst back through the main office door. ‘What’s the matter with you? Have you gone stark raving mad, or what?’

Anger turned to shame when, suddenly, Lilian dropped into her chair and began sobbing: deep sobs that shook her frame and tore the heart out of Alice, who was watching. ‘Hey, now!’ Going to her, she slid a comforting arm round Lilian’s shoulders. ‘It’s all right … everything’s going to be all right.’

Ignoring the bewildered stares of the other staff, and stooping to look into Lilian’s face, she asked gently, ‘Don’t you think it would be better if you went home?’

Lilian didn’t answer.

Having successfully retrieved the pieces of his precious report, Mr Martin offered, ‘I’ll arrange a car. Get her home. Call the doctor. She’s obviously ill.’

Instructing a secretary to organise Lilian’s ride home, he went to her and softly apologised. ‘I should have seen straight off how ill you were.’ Until now, though, he hadn’t noticed the pale, pinched skin, or the abject misery in her eyes. Her hands, too, were trembling uncontrollably. ‘You need a doctor, Lilian,’ he said kindly. ‘Alice will take you home. Let her call the doctor. She can stay with you for the rest of the day if you like.’

Being the businessman he was, it crossed the back of his mind that, if Alice was away too, he would be desperately short of staff. But suddenly, in the midst of it all, he realised there were times when he wished he could just walk away from it all. Instead of working for a living, the work had taken him over.

It was a sobering thought.

Within ten minutes, Alice was escorting Lilian from the building. Now a shivering wreck, Lilian clung to her. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen,’ she kept saying. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen.’

Alice helped her into the car. ‘It’s all right,’ she kept saying. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.’

The driver softly hummed a song as he went away. If there was one thing that unnerved him, it was a sobbing woman.

In the back, Alice was deeply concerned about Lilian, who was muttering and crying, and telling her how she was ‘sorry’. ‘You don’t need to be “sorry” for anything,’ Alice assured her.

Yet she could not imagine why Lilian was in such a state. She wondered if it was because of what she had done to the surveyor’s report. Then she wondered if it might be something in Lilian’s private life that had rendered her such a shivering wreck.

Whatever it was that seemed to be eating away at her, Alice knew one thing for certain: it had sent Lilian dangerously close to a breakdown.

It was a ten-minute ride to Lilian’s small house; with the streets busy, it was a stop-start journey.

When they arrived at their destination, Alice thanked the driver and told him he could go. ‘If I need to, I’ll catch the bus,’ she told him.

At the door, Alice asked Lilian for the key. While Lilian fumbled in her pockets, Alice noticed the front door was partly open. Her first instinct was that Lilian had been burgled. ‘You stay there a minute,’ she told Lilian, who was still preoccupied searching for the key.

‘I can’t find it,’ she was muttering. ‘I don’t know where it is.’

Cautiously, Alice went inside. From somewhere close, she could hear a wireless playing loud music, and Alice began to feel apprehensive of what she might find inside the house. ‘Who’s there?’ Any minute now, she expected to be confronted by a burglar.

With her heart in her mouth, she came into the sitting room, and what she saw gave her a shock.

The room was littered with newspapers and empty cups. Two of them had turned over on the table, the spillage of tea now dried on the surface and on the lino, where it had at one stage dripped and had left a dark smudge.

There were other cups in the hearth, and writing paper torn into shreds and thrown across the rug. The fire-grate was piled high with ash and cinders, and the curtains of one window were still drawn. There was a crumpled pillow and blanket in the fireside chair, as if somebody had been sleeping there.