I put the paper aside and headed towards the words, meaning to make my apologies and leave. If the dungeon was double-booked, as her conversation seemed to indicate, then I would be doing someone a favour.
‘Never mind “It happens”.’ The male voice, issuing from beyond a downstairs staircase marked ‘Staff Only’, was querulous. ‘I’ve had to juggle a lot of commitments to make space for this booking. Don’t you see enough of the place?’
‘It’s my livelihood,’ said Maria with a touch of steel.
I looked over my shoulder at Reception. It was temporarily unmanned, and the door staff weren’t watching. I crept past the rope cordon and down the short flight of stairs.
‘Yes, but damn it!’ insisted the man.
I peered around the corner. He looked familiar somehow, though I didn’t recognise the woman with him, who was mousy and quiet with her hair half over her face.
‘I booked this last week,’ he continued. ‘For goodwill’s sake, Maria…’
‘I’m more about strong will than goodwill,’ she said. Her manner was flirtatious, studiedly light, but there was definite steel in it. ‘As you well know, Judd. I’ve got two little lab rats coming tonight, and I can’t contemplate disappointing them. Don’t you have equipment at home you can use? I can recommend a good shop if you don’t.’
‘Now you listen to me,’ said Judd, and his face was a warning shade of red. ‘It’s down to me that this place keeps its licence. If I wanted to have it shut down…’
‘Oh, stop huffing and puffing,’ said Maria. ‘How would that be in your interests? We all know more about you than you’d care to have made public, don’t we?’
Judd didn’t stop huffing and puffing, but his powers of speech seemed to vanish at that.
‘Bitch,’ he muttered after a short pause.
‘Oh, you love me really,’ said an unperturbed Maria. ‘But yes, I’ll accept the title. I hope we’ll see you at the party?’
He grunted.
‘Lovely,’ said Maria. ‘Good evening, then.’
Now was the time for me to barge in and make my apologies – in fact, now was long overdue. I could have avoided the nastiness between them if I’d timed things a bit better. But I’d been afraid to come between them, and the fear hadn’t diminished despite the cessation of hostilities.
So I hared back up the stairs and hid myself in an alcove while ‘Judd’ and his female companion stalked out in high dudgeon.
I was so well hidden that Maria didn’t spot me when she came up the stairs to wait for us by the Reception desk. I shuffled over to her, ready with the sheepish expression, my words of apology prepared, when Tom burst through the revolving door looking windswept and urgent.
‘Was that Judd Keane?’ he asked of anyone who would answer. ‘Coming out just then?’
Of course – the leader of the council! Tom’s bugbear. My eyes nearly popped at the implications. Plus…his initial was J! Oh, my God, had that girl with him been Mia? Oh, my God.
I was too caught up in this whirlwind of speculation to contribute to any of the following exchange, plus I was so ridiculously pleased to see Tom that my shoes, although flat, felt wobbly.
Maria shrugged.
?
??So many people pass through here,’ she said. ‘It’s a popular place.’
He looked back over his shoulder and seemed to be making an effort to calm himself.
‘Am I late?’ he asked, looking at both of us in turn. ‘Sorry if I am.’
‘You’d be sorry if you were,’ said Maria with a secretive smile. ‘Believe me. But actually, you are right on time. Shall we go downstairs?’
She nodded at the receptionist, who remained blank-faced, and led us towards the cordoned-off staircase.
‘In fact,’ she said, ‘there was some unpleasantness over a double booking, but I fought our corner. It’s never pleasant when two tops go head to head, though. Neither will back down. Perhaps you and I, Tom, will find that tonight.’
He laughed, a little distractedly.