James

Michael is showing the strain, constantly pacing Richard’s office. I’m about to ask him to stop doing it, but pull myself up short as I realise I’m doing the same myself.

We’ve not heard from Charlotte now for two days.

Beth has shadows under her eyes. Richard has sent her upstairs, supposedly to sleep. But I’m not sure if she will.

And Richard himself…. He looks almost haunted. Perhaps someone who didn’t know him well wouldn’t spot it, as he puts up a show of going about his daily work, but every so often, I catch him staring into the distance.

Francis too, I see watching him constantly, if surreptitiously. Then too, I see her eyes following Michael as he stalks back and forth.

“You’ve not heard from her again?” Anxiety lies layered within Richard’s words.

Michael snarls. “You think we wouldn’t have told you if we had?”

Abruptly the air rattles with the clanging of alarms. Richard sits back in his seat. Michael ducks his head as though dodging the wall of sound. Outside, a siren blares.

“What the hell?” mutters Richard. “Francis,” he yells through the door. “Is there a fire drill going on they’ve not told me about?”

Through the internal window, I see her brows crease as she taps into her desk phone. “No, not today, Mr Haswell. I’m just calling Security now.…” She nods, the receiver pressed to her ear. “They’re reporting some kind of disturbance in the basement levels….”

Red-faced, his patience short, “Well, get them to shut off that racket!”

As the alarms die away, he turns back to me. “Um, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, how Charlotte is returning. So, she’s not told you any details at all? Just a couple of one-line messages to say she’s alright and still on her way?”

“All we know…” I say, “… is that she wanted a top-end smartphone and flashlights.…”

“She planned to travel in the dark?”

It seems reasonable, doesn’t it….

…. all those underground plans of the City she compiled….

“Er….” It’s Francis, her head popped around the door, eyes dancing, wiping tears of laughter away. “…. you’d better all get down to the parking level. You’re wanted there….”

Underground….

The three of us move as one, heading for the elevator.

*****

seems interminable. A part of me is singing, another part

How is she?

Is she hurt?

repeatedly laces and unlaces his

What’s wrong with him?

he must be

gloom of a basement parking lot and the smell of drains. One of the

here for years,” he comments as, with

“Come on, Love. Y’know, there’s a

hand rises from the depths to meet his. He takes the hand and

encrusted in

Mud????

…. Perhaps it’s mud….

straggles down her body in grey-green snakes which cling

hanging, shoulders bowed and breathing heavily, she turns her hands over and over, looking at herself. “Oh…. that was fuckin’ awful,” she pants at the plumber as, standing back at a safe distance,

her gaze swings and she

the caked-on muck covering her face,

pair of emerald eyes

for a bit. Er…. I know you’re

sewers to get back

…. to me….

the sight of my dripping filthy Jade-Eyes. Arms held out, I stride over and her face lights up, a white-toothed grin bright under the caked

warm. “Elizabeth’s fine. Thank you,

touch her, but, “Come on. Let’s get you into the

looks to Michael. He’s smiling but the smile

fuck’s wrong with

We got her back….

you wanted,

the least. Charlotte retreats into a corner, vainly trying to catch the drips from her clothes. A small, but feculent pool gathers at her feet, and she looks apologetically at Richard, who simply sucks in a smile and taps on his phone. “Francis, get

in a while,” he says as he exits the

and Michael in the lift, she looks anywhere but at us, and as the door sweeps open to the apartment, she marches straight to the bathroom, shedding her clothes in a stinking heap just

up the discarded garments with distaste, shovelling them into a trash bag, tying it tight, then dropping the lot down the chute. “The sooner we’re rid of those, the

sound of hissing water and splashing in the background, we talk quietly as we wait. Michael’s not happy, I can

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