While Izzy fielded a call from an irate constituent who had been unable to secure tickets for the Olympic diving—“yes, I like Tom Daley, too,” she said, rolling her eyes at Robin, “but it’s a lottery, madam”—Robin spooned out instant coffee and poured UHT milk, wondering how many times she had done this in offices she hated, and feeling suddenly extraordinarily grateful that she had escaped that life forever.
“Hung up,” said Izzy indifferently, setting down the receiver. “What were we talking about? Oh, Geraint, yah. He’s furious Della didn’t make him a SPAD.”
“What’s a SPAD?” Robin asked, setting Izzy’s coffee down and taking a seat at the other desk.
“Special Adviser. They’re like temporary civil servants. Lots more prestige, but you don’t hand the posts out to family, it’s not done. Anyway, Geraint’s hopeless, she wouldn’t want him even if it were possible.”
“I just met the man who works with Winn,” said Robin. “Aamir. He wasn’t too friendly.”
“Oh, he’s odd,” said Izzy, dismissively. “Barely civil to me. It’s probably because Geraint and Della hate Papa. I’ve never really got to the bottom of why, but they seem to hate all of us—oh, that reminds me: Papa texted a minute ago. My brother Raff’s going to be coming in later this week, to help out in here. Maybe,” Izzy added, though she did not sound particularly hopeful, “if Raff’s any good, he might be able to take over from me. But Raff doesn’t know anything about the blackmail or who you really are, so don’t say anything, will you? Papa’s got about fourteen godchildren. Raff’ll never know the difference.”
Izzy sipped her coffee again, then, suddenly subdued, she said:
“I suppose you know about Raff. It was all over the papers. That poor woman… it was awful. She had a four-year-old daughter…”
“I did see something,” said Robin, noncommittally.
“I was the only one in the family who visited him in jail,” said Izzy. “Everyone was so disgusted by what he’d done. Kinvara—Papa’s wife—said he should have got life, but she’s got no idea,” she continued, “how ghastly it was in there… people don’t realize what prison’s like… I mean, I know he did a terrible thing, but…”
Her words trailed away. Robin wondered, perhaps ungenerously, whether Izzy was suggesting that jail was no place for a young man as refined as her half-brother. Doubtless it had been a horrible experience, Robin thought, but after all, he had taken drugs, climbed into a car and mown down a young mother.
“I thought he was working in an art gallery?” Robin asked.
“He’s gone and messed up at Drummond’s,” sighed Izzy. “Papa’s really taking him in to keep an eye on him.”
Public money paid for these salaries, Robin thought, remembering again the unusually short prison sentence the son of the minister had served for that drug-induced fatal accident.
“How did he mess up at the gallery?”
To her great surprise, Izzy’s doleful expression vanished in a sudden spurt of laughter.
“Oh, God, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. He shagged the other sales assistant in the loo,” she said, quaking with giggles. “I know it isn’t funny really—but he’d just got out of jail, and Raff’s lovely looking and he’s always pulled anyone he wants. They shoved him into a suit and put him in close proximity with some pretty little blonde art graduate, what did they think was going to happen? But as you can imagine, the gallery owner wasn’t too chuffed. He heard them going at it and put Raff on a final warning. Then Raff and the girl went and did it again, so Papa had a total fit and says he’s coming here instead.”
Robin didn’t feel particularly amused, but Izzy appeared not to notice, lost in her own thoughts.
“You never know, it could be the making of them, Papa and Raff,” she said hopefully, then checked her watch.
“Better return some calls,” she sighed, setting down her coffee mug, but as she reached for her phone she froze, fingers on the receiver as a sing-song male voice rang out in the corridor beyond the closed door.
“That’s him! Winn!”
“Well, here I go,” said Robin, snatching up her box file again.
“Good luck!” whispered Izzy.
Emerging into the corridor, Robin saw Winn standing in the doorway of his office, apparently talking to Aamir, who was inside. Winn was holding a folder with orange lettering on it saying “The Level Playing Field.” At the sound of Robin’s footsteps, he turned to face her.
“Well, hello there,” he said with a Cardiff lilt, stepping back into the corridor.
His gaze dribbled down Robin’s neck, fell onto her breasts, then up again to her mouth and her eyes. Robin knew him from that single look. She had met plenty of them in offices, the type who watched you in a way that made you feel clumsy and self-conscious, who would place a hand in the small of the back as they sidled behind you or ushered you through doors, who peered over your shoulder on the excuse of reading your monitor and made chancy little comments on your clothes that progressed to comments on your figure during after-work drinks. They cried “joke!” if you got angry, and became aggressive in the face of complaints.
“Where d’you fit in, then?” asked Geraint, making the question sound salacious.
“I’m interning for Uncle Jasper,” said Robin, smiling brightly.
“Uncle Jasper?”
“Jasper Chiswell, yes,” said Robin, pronouncing the name, as the Chiswells did themselves, “Chizzle.” “He’s my godfather. Venetia Hall,” said Robin, holding out her hand.
Everything about Winn seemed faintly amphibian, down to his damp palm. He was less like a gecko in the flesh, she thought, and more like a frog, with a pronounced potbelly and spindly arms and legs, his thinning hair rather greasy.
“And how did it come about that you’re Jasper’s goddaughter?”
“Oh, Uncle Jasper and Daddy are old friends,” said Robin, who had a full backstory prepared.
“Army?”
“Land management,” said Robin, sticking to her prearranged story.
“Ah,” said Geraint; then, “Lovely hair. Is it natural?”
“Yes,” said Robin.
His eyes slid down her body again. It cost Robin an effort to keep smiling at him. At last, gushing and giggling until her check muscles ached, agreeing that she would indeed give him a shout should she need any assistance, Robin walked on down the corridor. She could feel him watching her until she turned out of sight.
Just as Strike had felt after discovering Jimmy Knight’s litigious habits, Robin was sure that she had just gained a valuable insight into Winn’s weakness. In her experience, men like Geraint were astoundingly prone to believe that their scattergun sexual advances were appreciated and even reciprocated. She had spent no inconsiderable part of her temping career trying to rebuff and avoid such men, all of whom saw lubricious invitations in the merest pleasantry, and for whom youth and inexperience were an irresistible temptation.
How far, she asked herself, was she prepared to go in her quest to find out things to Winn’s discredit? Walking with sham purpose through endless corridors to support her pretense of having papers to deliver, Robin pictured herself leaning over his desk while the inconvenient Aamir was elsewhere, breasts at eye-level, asking for help and advice, giggling at smutty jokes.
Then, with a sudden, dreadful lurch of imagination she saw, clearly, Winn’s lunge, saw the sweaty face swooping for her, its lipless mouth agape, felt hands gripping her arms, pinning them to her sides, felt the potbelly press itself into her, squashing her backwards into a filing cabinet…
The endless green of carpet and chairs, the dark wood arches and the square panels seemed to blur and contract as Winn’s imagined pass became an attack. She pushed through the door ahead as though she could physically force herself past her panic…
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
“Bit overwhelming the first time you see it, eh?”
The man sounded kindly and not very young.
“Yes,” said Robin, barely knowing what she said. Breathe.
“Temporary, eh?” And then, “You all right, dear?”
“Asthma,” said Robin.
She had used the excuse before. It gave her an excuse to stop, to breathe deeply, to re-anchor herself to reality.