Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

There were some noticeable absentees from the dreaded SS this morning. Copeland had still not seen fit to return, and Vaart and the Penney twins were also on the missing list. More significantly from Gryce's point of view, so was Thelma. She was given to spending up to forty minutes in the lavatory in the early part of the morning, so, while naturally anxious to see her and compare notes, he had not really noticed her absence until the others began to drift in and clamour for coffee.

It could be that she was ill, or pretending to be: office juniors could be expected to take off one day in ten so Gryce had observed, so Thelma was about due for one. Or, the fact had to be faced, she could have been sacked.

Her uncle down in the Files Depository would have knowledge of her movements if anyone did, anyway it was worth a try. Gryce was not at all keen on this approach: in the first place, what if it proved to be the same commissionaire who had caught him and Thelma where they had no right to be? Gryce's concern would then suggest that he was more deeply involved with the wretched child than was the case; in the second place, there was no way of knowing that the commissionaire now on duty would be Thelma's uncle at all, perhaps they divided their work up on a roster basis. That could get him into even deeper water.

But it had to be faced if Gryce was to get a moment's peace. Waiting until everyone's attention was seized by an illustrated catalogue which Grant-Peignton had brought from his precious gardening centre, he sidled off to the lifts and down to basement three.

There was no commissionaire at all on duty outside the Files Depository. Gryce, had he so wished, could have waltzed in and microfilmed every blessed document in sight. Monday Disease had obviously claimed another victim: from the number of absentees one could almost imagine it was a public holiday.

Back on the seventh floor, Gryce found his colleagues, his few remaining colleagues he should say, getting increasingly restive about the non-appearance of Thelma. Ardagh was positively indignant. He said that for Copeland, Vaart and the Penney twins to take French leave was one thing, they were paid to perform certain duties and if those duties could not be performed it was no skin off anyone's nose whether they turned up or not. Thelma was in a different category, she was supposed to attend to the department's needs. After taking an hour to run a five-minute errand on Friday, she had been told that she might leave at lunch-time (here Ardagh looked accusingly at Grant-Peignton). She now clearly had the fixed impression that she could come and go as she pleased. It was too bad.

Pam, during this diatribe, had taken matters into her own hands and gone out to the vending machine in the foyer to fetch coffee for all. That, in Gryce's view, was uncommonly civil of her and it did not warrant the barrage of cat-calls and comments from the denizens of Traffic Control upon her return. 'Don't overstrain yourself and 'Tell you what, you get our coffee and we'll lend you our chairs!' were among the remarks made. Barracking of this kind from the other side of the partition had become commonplace since the disappearance of the furniture. Even the Traffic Control junior, the African-looking girl, had been heard to say, 'All right for some' on more than one occasion.

Grant-Peignton, clearly stung both by Ardagh's innuendoes and by the chaff from Traffic Control, seemingly wished to take it out on Gryce. 'I suppose it goes without saying that our desks and chairs have yet to be traced?' Gryce, editing out all reference to Thelma, gave him a summary of his expedition to the Design and Maintenance bay on Friday morning.

'So no progress has been made?'

'I'm afraid that's about the size of it.'

'Then it seems there's nothing to be done until the return of either Mr Copeland or the Fire and Safety Officer, whichever be the sooner. This is a management matter now and completely out of my hands. If any of you wish to stay here twiddling your thumbs for the rest of the day, that's a matter for you. For myself, I have no intention of providing a free sideshow for our hardworking friends next door.'

Grant-Peignton said this quite loudly so that he could be heard in Traffic Control. There were one or two people in that department whom Gryce had recognized at the Albion Players' meeting and it was clear that their chairman's shaft had gone home, for they ceased their grinning and gawping at once.

After expressing the hope that it would not be too much to ask for his colleagues to turn up tomorrow, in case their head of department should choose to do the same, Grant-Peignton put on his coat and left. He was quickly followed by Ardagh, leaving only Pam, Seeds, Beazley and Gryce.

Before Seeds and Beazley could draw Pam into the inquest which they immediately began on Grant-Peignton's somewhat temperamental performance, Gryce touched her elbow and drew her to one side.

'I have to talk to you as soon as possible. It's very urgent.' As he whispered the words it occurred to him that it was the kind of thing she ought to be saying to him, not of course that she had yet been given cause to.

Pam nodded briefly, perhaps she had already guessed there was something in the wind, and turned casually to Seeds and Beazley to say that she was going with Gryce to Hatton Garden to choose an anniversary present for his wife. Pam could be very glib when she wanted: still, it did mean she could be relied on to cope with a suspicious husband if, touch wood, the need arose.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in a small Frenchified restaurant in Soho which Gryce had once or twice passed but never been in before. Glancing in through the net-curtained window at the tables for two with their chequered cloths it had seemed to him to be just the place to get an affair off the ground. It was a shame that Pam and he would be talking mainly shop.

He had rehearsed his material in chronological order: starting with the aperitif of what Thelma had overheard about the missing furniture — not much to go on there, but Pam might have a theory — he would produce (with a flourish) the Albion Printeries invoice, hinting that that was not the end of the story by a long chalk, and then digress to the hidden lift that served only one floor, the boardroom under the Buttery and the presence at its table of the important Cabinet minister; after that he would bring in Parsloe. The sting in the tail could be either United Products, that mirror-image of British Albion, or the not-pulled-down-after-all printing works in Grain Yard, he would have to play it by ear.

In the event, the restaurant service was so bad that he had to break off many times to have dishes they had not ordered sent back and to ask if there was any possible chance of the wine he had selected arriving before the dessert. A harassed waiter cleared away the Albion Printeries invoice along with their soup plates and Gryce had to retrieve it from the kitchens. He found himself backpedalling on his narrative and in the end it came out all in a jumble. But Pam listened intently, prompting him from time to time with intelligent questions, and finally congratulated him on his detective work.

'And you're absolutely sure you've told nobody?'

'Absolutely.' Gryce was emphatic. Perhaps he had told Parsloe more than he ought to have done, he couldn't remember, but Parsloe didn't count.

'I'm not sure how much of this we ought to reveal at this stage,' Pam mused, after saying that she would have to get the executive committee together as soon as possible. 'If Thelma's been questioned, as she must have been, then obviously we're in one of those they-know-that-we-know and we-know-they-know-we-know situations. So it can't do much harm to call the Albion Players together and tell them about this boardroom business, it might lead to some interesting theories. As regards the rest of your fascinating saga, my gut feeling is that for the moment the executive committee ought to know and nobody else.'