Chapter Forty Three

It didn’t help that Maggie got excited as soon as Sorcha asked her to come into her office the following morning: she almost had second thoughts, but couldn’t see how else she was going to get it done.

“I’m about to ask you to do something that isn’t in your job description.”

Sorcha meant it to be a stern and slightly forbidding statement, but it misfired. Maggie just looked like a child let loose in a sweet shop, and Sorcha felt that she had already gone past the point of no return.

“So long as it’s not illegal, I’m up for it.” Maggie could just about sense that probably hadn’t been the right thing to say, but guessed wrongly, “I’d probably be OK on some kinds of illegal, too. Try me.”

“God, no. Nothing as interesting as that, I’m afraid.” Sorcha was standing with her hands up in front of her, as if to protect herself, “I just need to get hold of a dress before Saturday evening.”

Maggie repeated the kind of skipping action that Sorcha had first noticed when she had come in holding the newspaper: it was another gold shoe day.

“Where are we off to then, deary? He is a very nice young man, if I say so myself.”

She had been about to ask Sorcha whether he had any single friends, but something about the frown lines which were corrugating her forehead told her this wasn’t a good time.

“I know that this is going to disappoint you, but it isn’t like that. He’s just a friend.” As she said it, Sorcha felt as if there was a large sign lighting up above her head saying “lame”. It made her try harder, knowing that it wouldn’t be the last time she had to have this particular conversation, “It’s almost as if we’ve ended up in this together, and all the time we’re in it it’s easier if we are together. Once everyone’s found and locked up I can’t imagine we’ll ever see one another again.”

Maggie seemed to calm down a bit. Sorcha had the unsettling sense that she was seeing her as she really was, rather than as the slightly mutant Cinderella she’d been thinking of her as since Tuesday afternoon.

“Oh well. We can still dream, though, can’t we? What kind of dress was it?”

“Black tie-ish. Preferably black, so that I don’t stand out too much. Don’t care what it costs, within reason.” She hesitated, trying again to guess what Maggie was thinking, “I’m paying. I know it’s hideously short notice, but could you see if you can get me a personal shopping appointment at either Selfridges or Harvey Nicks? Given my diary, it would have to be on Saturday, I think.”

“Of course I can. What shoe size are you?” Sorcha looked slightly blank, “They usually ask, you know. If you want shoes as well.”

The fact that Maggie knew enough to ask the question was frankly weird.

“Five, mostly. Sometimes a five and a half or a six.” It suddenly all felt a bit daunting, especially given Maggie’s usual wooliness, “I’m guessing that it isn’t going to work, but it’s worth a shot. If you can, it might be an idea to be pushy, or get a bit creative with the truth.”

Maggie smiled at her in a way which might almost have been maternal, had Maggie not been so completely unmaternal in every other way.

“Don’t you worry love. If this can be done, I’ll do it. Even if it can’t I’ll still give it my best shot.” Sorcha looked confused, “You look as if you don’t believe me.”

“You just seem to have a bit more fight about you on this than when I ask you to do battle with the IT department.”

Maggie was smiling and unrepentant, knowing only too well the answer to the question she was about to ask.

“Have you ever actually tried having a conversation with the IT department?”

When Sorcha returned to her desk from a tedious and pointless meeting which had taken most of the morning, Maggie was on the phone. Sorcha didn’t pay much attention to the conversation but it gradually got louder, until it got to the point where she was going to either have to shut her office door or sit with her fingers in her ears if she was going to have any hope of pretending that her secretary wasn’t having a detailed discussion about her shape, colouring and personal foibles. She thought about intervening, but Maggie was clearly enjoying herself and Sorcha had no idea who she was talking to, so shut the door and tried to work through her inbox. A while later, Maggie battered on the door looking gleeful again.

“All sorted.”

Sorcha wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but knew she needed to be encouraging.

“You’re a genius. Where do I have to be when?”

It was clear before she even said anything that Maggie was intent on answering a completely different question from the one that she’d been asked.

“I’ve just had a fabulous conversation with the stylist. He’s such a lovely man. Gay, of course, but so understanding…”

Sorcha interrupted her before she could get any further, afraid of where it might end.

“What stylist? I’m getting lost here.”

“The band’s stylist. He’s in a right flap about the change of plans for Saturday, you know. Especially as they’ve all got to wear bullet-proof vests.”

Maggie was trying to be reassuring, but it didn’t work. Sorcha’s response was neither measured nor particularly controlled.

“What the fuck were you doing talking to the band’s stylist! Are you fucking nuts?”

Maggie stopped and looked at Sorcha again, in a way which made her squirm.

“Do you know that’s the first time you’ve shown any sign that you have any idea what you’re caught up in here.” She let it sink in for a couple of seconds, “He called to talk to you. You weren’t around, so I spoke to him.”

Sorcha was feeling slightly sick.

“And told him that silver would make me look like Caspar the Friendly Ghost?”

Maggie wasn’t flinching.

“Well, it would. You don’t need to be a stylist to figure that much out, deary. Harvey Nicks are expecting you at five this evening, which will give time for things to be shortened tomorrow if needs be. I’ve cleared your diary from four, which means that Monday now looks like a disaster zone, but I’m sure you’ll cope. Julian,” She looked up at Sorcha, over her glasses, “that’s the stylist; he offered to meet you there but I said you’d prefer not. He’s going to give them a call before you get there, but he didn’t have a problem with black. I need to call him back tomorrow about accessories.”

The newly capable Maggie was slightly disconcerting, but then so was the stylist and the bullet-proof vests. Sorcha felt like an ostrich without any available sand.

“Great. Is there anything else I’m meant to be doing?”

Maggie went back to her notepad, flipping through the pages.

“Heap of expenses to sign off, and there’s somebody keeps calling whose name I can’t quite catch. I think he might be Russian. I was going to try to divert him to Caroline’s special mailbox, but when I called her about him she said it was probably some guy in the Ukraine who you used to work with from time to time. She said to give her a call if you didn’t know who she meant. And she’s done you a list of all the messages.”