Angel of Death

As she drove away, she caught a glimpse in her wing mirror of Alex Manoussi coming out of the house. From the way he stared after her car she guessed he had followed her, was looking for her, and shivered. Thank God she had escaped before he caught up with her.

He still had the same effect on her as he had had, even before the yacht foundered. Always in black, his face set in strong, hard lines, his manner cold, he was not a man anyone would take to on sight.

When he walked up to her and asked her to dance one evening, on the yacht, she had found being in his arms a disturbing experience and afterwards had avoided him whenever they were in the same room. He had not spoken to her during the dance; she had learnt nothing about him and been left curious.

‘Who is he?’ she had asked Tom.

‘No idea. Obviously the boss knows him. Not exactly the life and soul of the party, is he?’

‘He looks like the angel of death.’

Tom had laughed. ‘You do say the oddest things, darling. What do you mean, the angel of death?’

‘I saw a picture once, when I was about eight. My grandfather had it hanging on his wall. There was a little girl, lying on a bed, and beside the bed a man all in black.’

‘An undertaker? A clergyman?’

‘No, a man like that one there – with a face like stone, wearing some sort of armour. And he had big, black wings. Grandad said he was the angel of death, who had come for the child. It was really spooky. I hated it. And that guy looks just like the angel. All he needs is black wings.’

He had come for Tom, the very next night. Had he come for her today? Why had he suddenly reappeared, after three years?

A shiver ran down her back. Was she going to die?

Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, she told herself. This is rank superstition. Grow up, why don’t you?

That night, she dreamt the old nightmare and woke up with the sound of Tom drowning going on and on inside her head and tears running down her face.

She was glad to get up, take a shower, wash the memories out of her head.

It was hot and sunny that Sunday; a little humid. Miranda would not normally wear shorts and a t-shirt to work, but nobody else was around in the office to see her. The porter downstairs at reception, was reading the sports section of a Sunday newspaper with his feet up on the edge of the desk he sat behind. He looked up as she buzzed at the plate glass doors, recognised her and grinned before zapping the door open.

‘Working on a Sunday? Hope you’re on double time!’

‘I hope so, too.’ She walked towards the lift while he watched, enjoying his view of her neat behind in brief red cotton shorts which revealed most of her long, slender legs.

‘You shouldn’t let him take advantage of you!’ he called, thinking that he would love to take advantage of her, himself. She had a curvy, sexy little bottom and he loved those legs.

She pressed the lift button, lifting the hair from her perspiring nape with her other hand, groaning. ‘It’s already really hot out there. We’re going to have a scorcher.’

‘A

fraid the air-conditioning is switched off,’ the porter apologised. ‘I’m not allowed to have it on at weekends.’

‘I’ll keep the window open while I’m working.’ She vanished into the lift, waving to him and he sighed, settling down to more long hours of tedium, a goldfish in a glass bowl beyond which life swam freely.

The first thing Miranda did in her office was to open the window but lower the wide-banded linen blinds to keep the room cool and shady. The window looked out into a courtyard full of shrubs and flowers, lined with wooden benches where staff often ate sandwiches in warm weather. The scent of roses drifted up to her nostrils, a dizzying aroma.

She made some strong black coffee, then began keying documents into her word processor, scanning the drawings which went with them and putting them into the computer’s memory too, printing them out afterwards, along with other pages of figures already in the machine’s memory. Terry had also left her a sheet pointing out where the printer differed from their previous one.

She began to sketch out ideas for the campaign, but kept yawning. On the other side of the courtyard lay the family’s apartment which was mostly used by Terry himself. Little golden specks of dust danced in the sunlight as Miranda sat at her desk.

Voices suddenly made her jump. Was that somebody in the courtyard? Nobody should be out there on a Sunday.

Then she realised that the voices came from the other side of the complex – from the family apartment. A window must be open.

‘Get your clothes off or do you want me to do it for you?’

Miranda’s eyes widened and her mouth opened in amazement. What on earth was going on over there? Had Terry brought a woman here?