Forget Her Name(87)

I stand back, my heart thumping.

Giacomo levers the crowbar into the crack between the lock and door frame, and with a quick jerk of his arm breaks the lock with a loud splintering sound.

We both wait for a moment. No alarm.

Nobody has come running to find out what the hell’s going on. The building seems to be empty. It occurs to me that even George may have gone home by now.

Giacomo swiftly packs away his tools and salutes me.

‘Arrivederci.’

‘Goodbye, and thanks.’

I watch him go down the stairs and then the silence is complete.

I push my feet back into my high heels, and crunch over wood splinters into Wainwright’s outer office. Some kind of waiting room. Very posh. Leather armchairs. Potted plants. Even a miniature fake Christmas tree on a table, white with red baubles.

I open the door into Wainwright’s office. It’s a spacious room with broad windows looking out over the street. I flick a switch. Spotlights come on overhead. My heels sink into the soft beige carpeting. Bloody beige. There’s some kind of geometric painting on the wall. Beside it is a huge map of Greater London, covered with pins and strings like something the police might put together for a crime scene analysis. And a free-standing whiteboard, wiped clean except for a date in the top right corner.

24 December.

The day Wainwright went under the train.

The large desk near the window has elegantly turned legs and a green marbled leather top. It looks respectably strong.

I consider calling Giacomo back.

There’s a large computer on the desk. An Apple Mac.

I sit down and turn it on.

The password box lights up, cursor blinking ready.

‘Christ.’

Undeterred, I check in the desk drawers. That’s what people do in films, and invariably find the password written down somewhere inside.

But there are no helpful password hints in the drawers. No cryptic clues scribbled on scraps of paper, no primers or lists or anagrams taped secretly to the underside of any of the drawers. Plenty of pens though, whiteboard markers, spare staples, bags of rubber bands, and dozens of torn chocolate-bar wrappers.

Jason had a sweet tooth, I think, chucking them out onto the carpet in my search. Presumably Joyce disapproved. ‘No more choccies. You don’t want diabetes, do you?’ Otherwise the wrappers would be in the wastepaper bin standing behind the desk. She may be gone now, but he’d probably got used to hiding them.

Exasperated, I try various passwords at random.

WAINWRIGHT123





123WAINWRIGHT


HOTSEXWITHJOYCE69


Nothing works.

I didn’t really expect them to. I blame Daddy, of course. I never learnt much about computers as a kid, kept out of school for years and home-taught. Phones aren’t much hassle, but my hacking skills are non-existent.

I stare at the blank screen of the Mac, wrestling with a burning desire to smash the computer to pieces with the leather swivel chair I’m sitting on.

But I don’t want to make that much noise.

Then I notice the filing cabinet, a few feet from the desk.

I get up silently and stand in front of it. It’s a large metal cabinet with five drawers. A plant pot on top containing a decorative fern. Attractive and sturdy, rather like the desk and the Jag he drove. Jason Wainwright had expensive tastes. I expect he charged substantial fees for his services. So who hired him to follow me about, if that was what he was doing?

I try the top drawer, holding my breath.

It’s not locked.





Chapter Fifty-Four I have no idea how much time has passed before I hear the lift doors open and close, then footsteps coming along the corridor in my direction.

I don’t move at first.

My neck hurts from being hunched over, reading. Papers and documents from several folders I found in the filing cabinet are strewn over Wainwright’s desk. And my eyes are sore from crying.

Damn you, Daddy.

Fucking damn you to hell.

Except I don’t believe in hell. I do, however, believe in revenge. How dare you hide all this from me? How dare you play God with my life?

Someone enters the outer room of Wainwright’s offices, crunching over the wood splinters. Not a security guard. A security guard would have raised an alarm by now, on a radio or phone. A security guard would be unlikely to enter the scene of a break-in late at night without back-up. Nor would he approach Wainwright’s office so openly and without hesitation.

I screw up the paper I’m reading and thrust it into my bag. Then I turn, leaning back against the big desk.

‘Hello, Daddy,’ I say.

Only it’s not my father who enters Wainwright’s office.

Anger is my first emotion. Then a sense of bitter hurt.

That surprises me. I thought it was Cat who was in love with him, not me. But maybe strong emotions can bleed through from one persona to another.

Dr Holbern would know.

I don’t.

‘Hello, Rachel,’ he says, without a single quiver in his voice. ‘I thought I might find you here.’

Dominic looks at me from the doorway, then I see his gaze move steadily past me to the leather-topped desk. The glossy black-and-white photographs everywhere. Papers scattered about. The drawer of the filing cabinet wide open. Folders spilt on the carpet. Everything in disarray, including my heart.