Radio Girls(108)

Several patrons frowned at the angry laughter of the two young women, who paid them no attention.




Maisie visited the Drama Department, on the pretense of asking about actors for broadcasting poems. It wasn’t hard to get Beanie alone. She perked up, smelling excitement.

“You told me ages ago that Simon’s family was in trouble. Have you heard anything further?”

Beanie nodded. “His father put a great deal of money into American investments. And as you know, there’s been a bit of a bother over there.”

“So the earl’s lost money?”

“It’s possibly quite desperate.” Beanie giggled. “And it’s said their cacao holdings in Trinidad are wobbly as well, but that might just be adding fat to the fire.”

“Which would make them frantic for any sort of good contract to keep the cacao flowing.”

“Begging for it, I’d think.” Beanie lit a cigarette and poked a (rather sharp) fingernail into Maisie’s shoulder. “Maisie, I’ve been involved in theater one way or another since I could toddle. I know the makings of a plot when I hear one.”

“Yes. I’m writing a play.”

“Most certainly you are. Do you know, it’s dreadfully funny, but I warrant I could help you a great deal if you were to actually trust me with the full story.”

Maisie looked into Beanie’s challenging green eyes. Not the full story, no. Especially when Phyllida knew nothing. But Beanie understood things about the waters Maisie was about to chart that even Hilda didn’t.

What would Hilda do? What would an investigative journalist do? Some sources had to be trusted, surely?

“It’s a bit . . . tricky,” Maisie began, faltering. “I don’t really know what . . . All right, to be honest, Beanie, it’s an enormous secret, and I don’t know if I can trust you to keep it quiet.”

Beanie’s eyes twinkled further. “Learning how to keep the right sort of secrets is the only way to survive a posh girls’ boarding school, Maisie.”

Maisie leaned closer to Beanie.

“Listen carefully . . .”





TWENTY




Nestlé’s London office was a hulking maw of a Gothic atrocity. Maisie studied her reflection in her pocket mirror, pleased to see her efforts with the stage makeup continued to mask her well. She smoothed her coat and swept inside.

“May I help you?” the receptionist, an overpolished Home Counties young man, too young for his ostentatious pince-nez, intoned in a ponderous accent.

“Good afternoon,” Maisie said in a crisp tone, articulating well enough to not be putting on a fake accent, exactly, but not be readily identifiable as her usual wherever-she-was-from self. “I have an appointment with Mr. Grigson’s secretary. It’s to discuss advertising.”

An authoritative voice, nondescript appearance, and meeting with a secretary rather than the man himself garnered no interest. She was waved in and given directions without ever making eye contact.

Authority faded and Invisible Girl took over, as Maisie measured purposeful steps toward her quarry. The man at reception fulfilled her expectation in thinking nothing of a secretary’s schedule, and forgetting if he even knew that Grigson’s secretary left early on the afternoons of the long monthly board meeting.

Maisie’s careful research did not fail her. At 5:31, she was inside his office.

She went straight to work, forcing herself not to think about what it meant. About Simon. A man who had given her a ring. Who maybe loved her.

The nail file again. This lock was trickier. Or she was shaking. She fussed at it, sweat beading her neck. It was loosening. It was loosening—the nail file broke, the tip stuck inside.

No! Oh, no, no.

But the drawer was open.

Letters. Documents. Reams of them. Something in German, with notes in English. A contract? Notes, letters. A letter to someone about Simon, indicating that a man like him, so well connected and mannered and educated, was just the right sort for building a trusted new media. Eventually, Nestlé was sure to be sponsoring content on the radio, and that would help secure more contracts as well as customers. Maisie took her eight pictures, though she hardly knew what she was looking at and hoped her hands weren’t shaking too much.

Six minutes. She had to go. His diary was open on his desk, appointments in baroque handwriting. Her secretary’s training made her glance at it automatically, confirming his meeting. But it wasn’t open to today. It was open to next week. Drinks. With Simon. And the words: “Final contract.” Maisie had to force her hand to make the marks, writing down the time and place. She hadn’t ever crashed a party in her life. It might be time to start.

She made it all the way to the office door—and bumped into Grigson hurrying in.

“Who are you? What the devil were you doing in my office?”

“Nothing, sir. It was a mistake,” she said, her head firmly down, heart pounding. He must have forgotten something, not that it mattered. She just hoped he’d forgotten her face. She attempted to slither around him.

“I’ll say it was a mistake, all right. Don’t you dare try to get away from me!” He grabbed her arm. A few passersby stopped and stared.

“Let go!” Maisie snarled, attempting to twist free.