Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

'You think it might "get back", to quote Ron Seeds?'

'I'm quite sure it would. I can't prove it, who can, but I'm absolutely sure that someone's been planted on us to keep tabs on what we're doing. Everything gets back to Lucas, I'm convinced of it.'

'In effect a spy in the camp?'

'It sounds melodramatic, but there are spies all over the office. It would be very strange if we weren't harbouring at least one in the Albion Players.'

Gryce, despite the incompetent service which harassed him, was hugely enjoying himself. Pam was already considerably impressed by what he had had to tell her and unknown to her he had one more trick up his sleeve. He ordered coffee, or rather failed to order it since the waiter hurrying past ignored his signal, then said nonchalantly:

'There is of course always the possibility that the cuckoo in the nest is the very last person you'd suspect, in other words, truth is often stranger than fiction.'

'Someone on the executive committee, you mean? I hope not. We've worked together a long time and we trust one another. You have to trust someone.'

'Not on the executive committee but someone you've worked with closely. Would it surprise you to hear, my dear Pam, that your spy is no other than our mutual friend Mister Seeds?' Gryce said this rather effectively he thought, making it sound like a throwaway remark.

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Pam. 'He's the most hardworking, loyal member we've got.'

' Is he , indeed?'

Gryce had read in detective novels how this or that character gives 'a hurried explanation' of some important clue. He tried to give Pam a hurried explanation of what he had heard on Seeds' telephone, on the evening he had picked it up and recognized the voice of Lucas of Personnel commenting on his own involvement with the Liberal Club in Forest Hill. He must have made the explanation too hurried, for Pam kept saying things like 'I'm sorry, you've lost me' and 'Just a minute — what time was this?' until he had completely lost his thread. In the end she had to take him through the story by a process of question and answer, and after all that she burst out laughing.

'You silly juggins, that call wasn't for Ron Seeds at all! It was for the foreman of the night cleaners, they come on duty as soon as we've gone home!'

'I fail to see,' said Gryce huffily, 'why the foreman of the night cleaners should be interested in my political affiliations.'

'Because he's one of Lucas's stooges, isn't he? Ask Jack Vaart. He went back one evening to pick up a raincoat or something and found him searching through all the desks with a bunch of master-keys — that was in the palmy days when we had desks. He pretended he'd been told to look for stolen property but of course we knew what he was after. Anything that we might have unearthed and had squat away — such as your invoice.'

Pam picked up the invoice, unexpectedly kissed it — a surrogate kiss for himself was how Gryce read it — and put it in her handbag.

'Don't look so woebegone, you've done splendidly. A large brandy is called for and then we'll go and stare at the Albion Printeries, I don't know what to make of that at all.'

'Nor can I. What I also don't understand is why Grant-Peignton should have made such a point of saying it had been pulled down years ago. You don't suppose he's the nigger in the—'

'No, I don't, you've got spies on the brain. He said that because he believed it. We all believed it, we believed it because we didn't check. What we want to know now is who put the story about in the first place. And why.'

They took a taxi to Grain Yard, why not, it was an occasion. And it gave Gryce the opportunity for holding Pam's hand which he did quite brazenly, without any accidentally-on-purpose brushing of sleeves. Must be the brandy.

Watching the clock tick up faster than he'd thought possible, they'd only gone fifty yards and he could already kiss goodbye to sixty pee, Gryce said: 'It may be only a side-aspect but I'm rather worried about young Thelma.'

'So am I.'

'Do you suppose she's been given the Order of the Boot?' He hoped his anxiety for himself on that score didn't transmit itself to Pam.

'It's very difficult to get fired from British Albion,' said Pam to Gryce's relief. 'All sorts of rigmaroles to be gone through, I don't think it's ever been done.'

'Then what can have happened to the girl? She can't have been kidnapped.'

'Let's hope not,' said Pam, in the mysterious way she sometimes had.

Gryce had already paid a brief visit to Grain Yard on his way to the office that morning, just to satisfy himself that what Parsloe had told him was true, he would have looked a bit of a fool if he'd dragged Pam all this way and then found a hole in the ground. It was a cobbled, mews-type thoroughfare in the form of a crescent, connecting two down-at-heel streets, more alleys really, near the river. It was an area of old warehouses, most of which had fallen into disuse, although here and there could be seen signs that a modest regeneration might be on the way, of the kind that had taken place in the vicinity of the Pressings wine bar. Grain Yard itself consisted mainly of small workshop-looking places, some of them long ago closed down, others seemingly on the verge of it, a few perhaps recently re-opened. The wide doors of one or two of the surviving premises were thrown open, or propped open since they seemed to be falling off their hinges, to reveal dumps of carboys or used tyres. Behind other splintering doors could be heard the sound of sawing and hammering or the whine of small machines, power-drills they sounded like.

Albion Printeries, as stated by Parsloe, was identifiable by a big wooden sign, its elaborately serifed lettering blistered almost into oblivion. The sign surmounted a squat single-storey building that reminded Gryce of the gate-lodge of the Victorian hospital, believed to have once been a workhouse, where his mother had died. A gate-lodge, indeed, was what it effectively was, for adjoining it was a high stone arch with iron gates secured by chains and a big rusted padlock. This led into an old brick-paved yard beyond which could be seen a corner of what must be the printing works proper.

'This would have been the despatch and delivery office,' said Gryce. 'I expect many a horse-drawn van has drawn up here in days gone by.'

'Very romantic,' said Pam, rattling the gates. 'The question is, can we get in?'

Gryce, to his own satisfaction, already had the answer to that one. The gate-house affair's two windows were smashed and boarded up on the inside with planks, so there was no access there; but the door between them looked a better proposition. It was locked, of course, Gryce had already checked, but its paintwork had flaked away leaving it vulnerable to the weather, and the surrounding woodwork was spongy to the touch. One good shove, Gryce reckoned, would do it.

Prudently, he reminded Pam that on the other hand there was such a thing as breaking and entering.

'I don't see how we can break and enter a building that doesn't officially exist,' retorted Pam cheerfully, and to Gryce's distress put her shoulder to the door. If she hadn't been so impetuous he would have told her to take a good look up and down Grain Yard to see if anyone was coming. Another thing: breaking open doors was man's work.

They were in a square room with a linoleum-covered counter, the goods counter it would be, running at right angles from the door, which Gryce had hastily shut behind them. There were no other furnishings, but a good deal of debris. The planks at the broken windows were ill-fitting and pale shafts of light fell across piles of paper and old cardboard boxes strewn about the floor. There was another door in the blank wall opposite but it was more solid than the outer one and very firmly locked. It would lead, both Pam and Gryce supposed, into the brick-paved yard approaching the printing works.