The Fixer

by Claudia Carroll

  Course I remembered. It’s my bloody job to.

  ‘We’ve so much to catch up on,’ I say, pulling up a stool on the island opposite her. ‘So let’s start with Freddie. Tell me everything, I’m dying to hear all. Omit no detail, however small!’

  ‘But what about you and this new job of yours?’ Harriet says worriedly. ‘Let’s talk about that first. The hours you seem to be working are insane.’

  ‘Oh, never mind about that,’ I tell her, with a dismissive flick of my wrist. ‘Anyway, getting back to Freddie . . .’

  ‘No, no, still staying with you,’ Harriet insists – a trait of hers that’s actually endearing. The fact that she’s far happier talking about other people than herself, and always deflecting conversations towards you. ‘This new job of yours. Where is it, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to know,’ I say flippantly. ‘It’s so boring.’

  ‘It’s not boring to me. It’s stressing you out and we really need to talk it through.’

  ‘All right then,’ I sigh, ‘it’s in waste management.’

  ‘Waste management?’

  ‘Yeah. You know, wheelie bins. Recycling. All of that.’

  ‘And what is it that you do there?’

  ‘I just got promoted to regional manager,’ I tell the practised lie smoothly. ‘Hence the crazy hours.’

  ‘But you used to work as a stage manager in a theatre,’ Harriet says, crinkling up her nose and looking puzzled. ‘Why the big career change? I thought you loved working in the arts, I thought it was your passion.’

  ‘Well, yeah, I still volunteer at the theatre whenever I can,’ I improvise, thinking this is as good a cover as any for the nutty hours I’m required to be out of the apartment. ‘But I was looking for a career change, and when I answered the ad for the job I’m doing now, I never in a million years thought I’d land it.’

  ‘It’s very weird all right,’ says Harriet, crinkling her forehead prettily. ‘You’ve no experience in waste management, for one thing. And for them to promote you to regional manager in such a short space of time?’

  ‘Well, there you go,’ I say airily. ‘I’m passionate about . . . rubbish . . . and, you know, saving the planet and all that, and I guess that’s what they saw in me. Anyway, back to Freddie de Courcey . . .’

  ‘No, let’s stay with you. So what’s the name of this company?’

  ‘Pest Be Gone,’ I say, looking directly at her.

  ‘And where are they based?’

  ‘Ohh, you know, branches everywhere . . . you know how it is. Anyway, I’m sure you’re bored stupid by all this, when we could be talking about you and your love life.’

  ‘And who’s your boss in Pest Be Gone? Have you spoken to them about the crazy pressure they’re putting you under?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was really appropriate,’ I reply. ‘There’s about ten people in the office who are snapping at my heels to get a sniff of my job.’

  ‘You must be on a colossal salary,’ Harriet insists, ‘to be able to afford a place like this. I mean, just look at it. Even Freddie was impressed when he was here.’

  She’s barely back in the country a wet day and already he called to see her, I remind myself. The pair of them could be on the brink of getting back together again. Which means I gotta work faster here. Gotta work quicker. I successfully broke the pair of them up once before, and I can do it again. Just watch me.

  ‘So how did you come by this flat?’ Harriet persists. ‘I mean, even if you were the CEO of Pest Be Gone, wouldn’t somewhere like this be a bit of a stretch for you, cash-wise?’

  ‘What can I say?’ I reply, holding up my two hands as if to say, ‘You got me!’ ‘It’s actually kind of a house-sitting arrangement, really, and I just got lucky, that’s all.’

  ‘House-sitting for who?’

  Fuck’s sake, aren’t I supposed to be the one asking the questions here?

  ‘No one I’ve ever met before,’ I say. ‘Just stumbled across this place via Airbnb at a rent I couldn’t believe. Anyway, how was Freddie when you saw him? I thought you were dying to tell me. I have twenty-four missed calls to prove it.’

  At that, Harriet gives a tiny smile, cradles her coffee mug in her hand and looks particularly content with herself.

  ‘Well?’ I probe, sensing a chink. ‘He must have been surprised to see you back home again, after all this time.’

  ‘You can ask him that yourself if you like,’ Harriet blushes, tucking a strand of her fair hair behind one ear and looking insanely pretty. Jesus. The woman just woke up, how is this fair? ‘When you see him, that is.’

  ‘When I . . . Sorry, what did you just say?’

  ‘When you see him,’ Harriet smiles. ‘This weekend, actually. Turns out his grandmother is hosting some big political fundraiser at their house, because of this election that’s all over the news, and Freddie is insisting that I go with him. And you too, of course,’ she adds, with a little nod at me, as I sit there, frozen-faced and rooted to my stool.

  ‘Can you believe it, Meg? After all this time? I’ll finally get to meet the scary Ellen de Courcey. But the best part of all is, you, my best friend, will be there with me, right by my side. I mean, how fab is that?’

  Chapter Twenty

  Harriet

  With Meg gone for the day, Harriet has time on her hands and the whole day stretching ahead of her, what with being ‘in between contracts’, as you were meant to say when you weren’t working.

  She can’t remember the last time she had the luxury of a few days off, and now that her jet lag has worn off, she plans to do a load of things with the time. Top of the list, to go back to Dead Old Lady Dresses, and ask her ex-boss if she can have her old job back. Or she could volunteer again at the Samaritans, just like she used to. There are plenty of useful things she could be doing with herself, but before cracking on with any of it, she has decided to be a good friend and start earning her keep around Meg’s gorgeous apartment.

  I’ll give the place a good going-over with a mop and a hoover, Harriet thinks. And I’ll rustle up a nice bit of dinner for this evening, for when Meg gets home. Be a surprise for her, and a small way of thanking her for her hospitality. It will be a lovely goodwill gesture, too, to show that all is well again between the two pals after such a rocky start.

  With a spring in her step, Harriet finds a tiny utility room off the kitchen that seems to be largely unused, because there is a mop, broom and bucket still with their shop stickers on them and a load of J-cloths in their packets. So she snaps on a pair of bright yellow Marigolds and knuckles straight down to it. The apartment is already pristine, but still, no harm in giving it a good old tidy-up, is there? For the next half-hour, she hums happily away to herself and kills time by scrubbing, polishing and even getting down on her hands and knees to wax the already shining glossy wooden floor in the living room.

  Which is when she notices it. Meg’s phone. Just sitting on the hall table, half hidden under a pile of post. Harriet picks it up and has a good look at it; it has been left on silent mode, but there are eighteen missed calls on it, from a whole load of people she’s never heard of.

  Well, poor old Meg must have been in such a frantic rush to get to that job of hers, Harriet thinks that she’s accidentally left the phone behind – and she’s probably going bananas in work without it.

  Without a second thought, she picks up her own phone to call that place where Meg said she worked. What’s the name of the company again, she wonders, Pest Be Gone? Something like that? To hell with it, she’ll find a landline number to call and just leave a message with reception there, for Meg to get back to her as soon as she can.

  Harriet googles the company on her phone, but there’s absolutely nothing showing. Just a few listings for a company out in Australia that swears blind they’ll get rid of all your pests for you. ‘100% GUARANTEED!’ Their banner ad runs right across the screen that pops up at you with delightful, up-close photos of ra
ts, bedbugs and cockroaches.

  Lovely.

  So this time Harriet googles all the local and national waste management companies, thinking she’s got the name wrong somehow. But again, nothing. Loads of companies that will empty wheelie bins and provide skips for you, but not a sausage that even remotely sounds like the name Meg had given her.

  Which is strange.

  Well, I must have got it wrong, Harriet thinks. I must have forgotten the name Meg gave me, and that’s all there is to it.

  Figuring Meg will come back home for her phone as soon as she realised that’s where she’s left it, Harriet goes back to all her scrubbing and cleaning. This time, she works her way through Meg’s living room, dusting and polishing and humming a happy little tune to herself as she goes.

  Then she comes to a discreet, tiny little corner alcove, hidden out of sight of the main, sunken living area. There is a door with a lock on it but it has been left open and the door is swinging ajar. Must have been because Meg was in such a rush to get out of here, Harriet figures, wavering a bit before deciding to go inside. But sure – she’s only going to give the floor a little hoover, what’s wrong with that?

  It’s tiny inside, poky and dark, so unlike the rest of the apartment. The space is so small, it barely fits a desk and chair. But at least there’s a table lamp, which Harriet clicks on, all the better to see what she is at.

  Well now, that’s odd, she thinks. For such a hyper-organised person like Meg, her desk is a total pigsty. There are little yellow Post-it notes scattered over every surface, and stuck to the wall right in front of you, there’s a whiteboard divided into several long columns. One is headed with the name ‘Nicole’, the second one says ‘Denys’, and the third is the longest one of all, with the name ‘Katherine Sisk’ written in bold, black highlighter pen at the very top.

  The Katherine Sisk, Harriet wonders, stopping dead in her tracks. That senator one, with the bullet-grey hair? Harriet knows who she is, but then so does just about everyone of voting age; she’s been in the media and on the news for what feels like most of Harriet’s life.

  The Good Lady Senator, everyone calls her, because she is a feminist first and last and is always to the forefront of women’s rights. The marriage equality referendum? Senator Katherine was like an engine behind the whole thing; pundits reckoned that it was her tireless support that got the vote over the finish line. Ditto the women’s rights movement. She is wildly popular, too; even Harriet’s dad, who’s spent his whole adult life saying that politicians are a lying shower of chancers, will turn up the volume on the TV or radio if the Good Lady Senator comes on.

  ‘A real class act,’ he always says. ‘If they were all like her, sure we’d have no bother.’

  So what’s Katherine Sisk’s name doing on a whiteboard above Meg’s desk? Along with a whole load of mobile phone numbers? The entries written underneath are all really weird too; there are strange, scribbled comments about someone called Jess, with a load of arrows shooting away from her name, with still more mad-looking, senseless things written underneath. The name Philip Sisk for one thing – Senator Katherine’s husband, maybe?

  That makes little enough sense to Harriet, but more baffling still is what’s written in the column directly underneath the name ‘Nicole’. It seems to be some sort of a timetable, neatly listing out all the places, and even more specifically, all of the times that this Nicole one, whoever she is, is due to be there:

  ‘7 a.m. hatha yoga class,’ it reads. Then ‘8 a.m.–9 a.m., @Costa on Meeting House Square, or maybe Caffeine & Co. opposite Google’. Underneath are even more dates, times and places – something to do with puppy-training classes at the weekends – it’s like this Nicole one’s whole life is more or less mapped out here.

  Which makes no sense to Harriet whatsoever. Meg’s work is in waste management – she’d said so over breakfast earlier. So all of this isn’t for work, is it? Is this what the wheelie bin companies do now, if you’re a bit behind with your payments? Stalk your every move till you cough up?

  Because that’s exactly how this noticeboard looks to Harriet.

  Just like something a stalker would have.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Meg

  Fuck, fucking, bollocky fucking nightmare. With bells on.

  I’m pounding the pavements on the way to Katherine Sisk’s office, and my brain is in utter and total meltdown.

  How could I have been so bloody stupid?

  I’m a planner, a plotter and an organiser – I pride myself on paying meticulous attention to detail. So why didn’t I plan for this? The fact that Harriet might get a bit homesick out in Kenya and would come home again? And then as soon as she was off the flight, get back in touch with Freddie bloody moronic rich boy de Courcey? And now this? Harriet planning to meet Ellen de Courcey at one of her fundraisers this weekend?

  Bugger it and bugger it again, I think furiously, as I narrowly avoid being run over by a cyclist on the busy road I’m crossing; my temper so bad, I’m not even watching where I’m going.

  ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed, or what?’ a cyclist yells at me, weaving in and out of the traffic with his Lycra-clad arse held high in the air, as he gives me the finger.

  No, I think, glaring crossly back at him. Actually there’s no need for me to. The de Courcey family will take care of that very nicely, thanks all the same.

  Instinctively, I fumble about in my bag for my phones, but for some reason can only find one of them.

  Jesus. Just when I thought this day couldn’t get any worse, now I must have left my second phone back at the flat.

  I’m already running late and don’t have time to go back for it, so it’ll just have to stay there. It’ll slow me down immeasurably though – the very last thing I need with so many work projects at such a critical stage.

  A plan, I think, thundering down the pavement. I need to make a plan to scheme my wily way out of this whole dung heap Harriet has landed me in. I need to stay calm, regroup and move forward. What’s utterly critical, however, is that Harriet be kept onside at all times. I’ve little choice in the matter, and if that means her staying on at the flat, so be it; from here on in, I’ll have to be sweetness and light around the girl. I’ll have to be hypocrisy itself – and no better woman.

  I’ve done it before and now it’s time for an encore.

  Christmas, two years ago

  As always, Ellen de Courcey was holding a huge festive champagne reception at the family home and naturally, Harriet’s name did not appear on the guest list.

  ‘Freddie is hopping mad about it!’ Harriet had confided in me, as the two of us strolled through a Christmas market down in the dockland area on a freezing cold December evening. ‘He says it’s a huge oversight on his grandmother’s part, and that I should be there with him. Oh Meg, it’s terrifying! He wants me to meet the granny, and the grandad too, that’s Freddie Senior, who’s bedridden and hasn’t left the house in decades, and apparently he’s the grumpiest man alive. And the granny – Ellen, that’s her name – sounds like the vilest woman you ever met in your life. Half of me just wants to run away and hide, but Freddie is insistent that I’m there with him. He says he’s already met my brothers and now it’s my turn to meet his family. And I’m petrified!’

  A nearby choir was belting out ‘Jingle Bells’ in perfect harmony and the sound filled the air, as I stopped at a little pop-up stand that was selling home-made Christmas decorations.

  ‘Meg?’ said Harriet, stopping in her tracks and looking at me funny. ‘You’ve gone very quiet on me all of a sudden. Come on, I really need your advice here. What would you do if you were me? Stay or go?’

  ‘You really want to know?’ I said gently, as the choir swelled to a crescendo behind us. ‘Because you mightn’t like what I have to say.’

  ‘You’re the only person who tells me the truth,’ Harriet replied, and you know what? I almost felt guilty when I saw the trust in her eyes. Like a lost little puppy
looking to its owner for guidance.

  Then I remembered why I was doing all this in the first place and said exactly what I needed to, to get the right result.

  ‘So let me get this right,’ I said, turning to face Harriet, as crowds of families with kids jostled past on their way to the Ferris wheel at the back of the market. ‘The formal invitations to this party would have gone out, what, a few weeks ago now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harriet said. ‘I suppose so, yeah.’

  ‘And you didn’t get one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And it can’t be an oversight on Ellen de Courcey’s part, because she has Freddie in one ear banging on and on about how much he wants you there.’

  ‘Well . . . I guess so.’

  ‘Oh honey, it’s as plain as the nose on your face,’ I shrugged. ‘You’re not wanted, simple as that. And I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t dream of turning up anywhere I wasn’t wanted, would you?’

  ‘No,’ said Harriet uncertainly. ‘No, it would be an awful thing to do.’

  ‘It’s no better than gatecrashing.’

  ‘Gatecrashing . . . yeah.’

  ‘It’s a snub,’ I went on, really pressing it home. ‘And a very deliberate one at that. So come on, Harriet, where’s your pride? This Ellen de Courcey so clearly wants nothing to do with you, no matter how much Freddie badgers her.’

  ‘So . . . what are you suggesting? That I just do nothing and tell Freddie I’m not going?’

  ‘Tell him you can’t possibly go when you haven’t been formally invited,’ I said, silently thanking Ellen de Courcey for playing her part so beautifully. ‘Why would you put yourself through the wringer like that? Like I’ve told you before, that family will never accept you, no matter how hard you try. So why don’t you and me just have a happy Christmas without them?’

  ‘Best idea I’ve heard all day,’ said Harriet, back to smiling again and linking her arm through mine as we weaved our way on through the Christmas market, all while the choir sang on.