‘Emily…’ Mr Fenwick glanced at his wife, who gave a small shrug of agreement. ‘To tell you the truth, we’re rather pushed for time today. We’ll get off now and you can give us a ring when there’s something else to see. I do hope everything gets sorted out.’
Emily gave him a vague nod, for once seeming quite distracted.
Martyn, the other salesman, walked over and ushered away the spectators. Emily’s eyes were fixed on Holly.
‘What?’ Holly asked. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Emily said, in such an unexpectedly pleasant tone that goose bumps popped up on both Holly’s forearms.
Chapter Forty-Three
Holly
‘What is it?’ Josh rushed over to Emily, a little breathless. ‘Mr Kellington’s on his way down. What’s the crisis?’
‘It appears that someone has vandalised the Lalique vase,’ Emily said with a pained look.
Josh walked over to the pedestal and bent closer to it, narrowing his eyes.
‘Bloody hell, the flowers have been damaged. How has this happened?’
‘Exactly the question I’ve just been asking myself,’ Emily said, the tip of her pink tongue shooting out and licking her lips. ‘The Fenwicks came in to view it and I’m afraid this is what they were confronted with.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘Needless to say, they couldn’t get out of the shop quickly enough.’
‘This vase is now unsaleable,’ Josh announced, his face grim. ‘It’s unlikely that a customer has damaged it walking past, because it’s behind the security rope and…’ he inspected the base of the marble pillar, ‘there are no pieces scattered on the floor as you’d expect with accidental breakage.’
‘What’s happening here?’
Everyone jumped a little at the sound of Mr Kellington’s voice booming from behind them.
‘I’m afraid the Lalique vase has been badly damaged,’ Josh said gravely. ‘Some of the flowers have been clean chipped off. It’s unsaleable and unreturnable.’
‘Was it a customer accident?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Josh shrugged. ‘It might’ve been done a while ago, because the broken bits are nowhere to be seen.’
Holly watched in trepidation as Mr Kellington’s usually pleasant expression grew thunderous. ‘What? And it’s only just been noticed? How can this have happened?’
Everyone shuffled, speechless, until Emily’s clear voice broke the silence.
‘I hate to say it,’ she sniffed, looking nervously at her hands as if it were torturous for her to issue a slight. ‘But as far as I’m aware, the only person who has touched the vase is Holly.’
All eyes turned immediately to Holly, and she felt her face ignite with a blaze of colour.
‘It was intact when I unpacked and dusted it two days ago,’ she said steadily. But the more she tried to focus on keeping calm and rational, the more she felt concerned it might look as if she was trying to cover something up.
Was it more natural to get annoyed? she wondered, and then berated herself. Such thoughts were ridiculous.
‘And when you unpacked it, you noticed nothing wrong at all… all the floral decoration on there appeared to be intact?’ Emily demanded, as if she were the showroom manager.
‘Of course I didn’t notice anything amiss. Don’t you think I might have mentioned it?’ Holly allowed a little more outrage to creep into her voice. Emily was a first-rate actress and she didn’t stand a chance unless she matched her skills.
‘You mightn’t have mentioned it if you were the one who knocked the flowers off it,’ Emily muttered, turning away.
‘Now, now, let’s just calm down a little,’ Mr Kellington urged. ‘There’s no joy to be had in pointing the finger and directing blame. It is, however, important that we at least try and establish how the damage occurred so we can avoid a similar situation in the future.’
‘It’s never happened before,’ Emily huffed, the implication being before Holly joined the company.
‘Perhaps we should have a search around and try to find the flowers,’ Holly suggested. ‘That might give us a clue as to what happened.’
‘I’ve already looked and there’s nothing on the floor or surrounding area at all,’ Emily said dismissively.
‘The cleaner has been in twice since the vase went on display,’ Josh pointed out. ‘It’s possible they’ve already been vacuumed up.’
‘I’ll have my secretary call her and ask if she found anything during her clean,’ Mr Kellington muttered, scratching his head.
‘I… I just wondered… what if it happened this morning?’ Holly ventured. ‘I mean… surely one of us would’ve noticed before now if it had been damaged for some time.’
‘It seemed to me the vase had been turned to purposely conceal the damage.’ Emily narrowed her eyes. ‘The chipped flowers were at the back where it wouldn’t seem so obvious.’
Holly said nothing and let her colleague’s peevish comments hang in the air. It would be clear to everyone, as it was to her, that Emily was persisting in her ploy to point the finger very firmly in Holly’s direction, despite having zero evidence.
‘Very well, let’s leave it there,’ Mr Kellington intervened. ‘We’re getting nowhere fast, and frankly, it’s rather unpleasant and not at all conducive to a happy workplace.’
The afternoon dragged on, as if something unspoken hung in the air. Holly even caught a subdued Ben and Martyn glancing at her a couple of times, as though they were trying to weigh up whether she was guilty of the damage or not.
Emily was the only one who seemed to get a second wind. She laughed more loudly with her customers, swept past Holly without acknowledging her in an overbearing cloud of Gucci Rush and stalked around the shop floor even more aggressively than usual.
Josh smiled at Holly when he passed, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t tell her not to worry, or reassure her that everything would be OK.
After yesterday’s high of being the sales golden girl, she felt quite the outcast.
Chapter Forty-Four
Holly
The first time Holly met Brendan’s wife, she’d got the distinct impression that Geraldine was looking for more than an employee; that she wanted a best friend.
Of course, she knew that couldn’t be the case; being someone’s friend was hardly a paid position.
‘Although we haven’t got kids yet, I hope we will have one day.’ A shadow had passed over Geraldine’s face but she’d quickly recovered. ‘Brendan works really hard and we have an amazing life, but it gets lonely and…’ She’d hesitated. ‘I’m not a friends sort of person, I suppose. I have difficulty trusting people.’
Holly had nodded, but she was far from being sure of exactly what Geraldine was trying to say.
‘As you can see, we have Patricia to do the housekeeping, so there wouldn’t be that much to do around the house. You’d be mainly hanging out with me and accompanying me to various places… Is that something that might interest you, Holly?’
Was she joking? Holly had thought. It had sounded like a dream… one she intended snapping up.
‘It sounds perfect. I’d love to work for you, Geraldine.’
‘Excellent! Well then, consider yourself hired. Myra at the office can sort out all the boring paperwork.’ Her eyes had flickered over Holly’s outfit. ‘We’ll go out shopping right now and get you some new clothes and anything else you need.’
Neither Brendan nor Geraldine had mentioned salary or working hours yet, but Holly felt a bit awkward bringing it up. She’d hopefully get a chance to broach the subject later.
‘I have some clothes back at the apartment,’ she had volunteered. ‘I can go and get changed if you’d prefer me to.’
‘Oh no, you don’t need to go back there. Come on, I’ll show you to your bedroom.’
Holly had found herself ushered back out into the hallway and up one of the flights of stairs. She felt a little twinge of sadness when she thought about the neat little flat with the river view. She felt sure she could have been happy there.
This was an amazing house for sure, but it occurred to her that living full-time with her boss might prove a little stifling on occasion.