‘To work. It’s Friday?’
‘Oh, God. What time is it?’
‘A quarter of seven. I have to shoot. Already running late. Will you be okay letting yourself out?’ He rummaged in a drawer and withdrew a blister pack, which he placed beside me. ‘There. That should help.’
I pushed my hair back from my face. It was slightly damp with sweat and astonishingly matted. ‘What – what happened?’
‘We can talk about it later. Drink your coffee.’
I took a sip obediently. It was strong and restorative. I suspected I would need another six. ‘Why am I in your T-shirt?’
He grinned. ‘That would be the dance.’
‘The dance?’ My stomach lurched.
He stooped and kissed my cheek. He smelt of soap and cleanliness and citrus and all things wholesome. I was aware that I was giving off hot waves of stale sweat and alcohol and shame. ‘It was a fun night. Hey – just make sure you give the door a really good slam when you leave, okay? Sometimes it doesn’t catch properly. I’ll call you later.’
He saluted from the doorway, turned and was gone, patting his pockets as if to reassure himself of something as he left.
‘Hold on – where am I?’ I yelled, a minute later, but he was already gone.
I was in SoHo, it turned out. One giant angry traffic jam away from where I was meant to be. I caught the subway from Spring Street to 59th Street, trying not to sweat gently into yesterday’s crumpled shirt and grateful for the small mercy that I was not in my usual glittery evening clothes. I had never really understood the term ‘grubby’ until that morning. I could remember almost nothing from the previous evening. And what I did remember came to me in unpleasant hot flashbacks.
Me sitting down in the middle of Times Square.
Me licking Josh’s neck. I had actually licked his neck.
What was that about dancing?
If I hadn’t been hanging onto the subway pole for dear life, I would have held my head in my hands. Instead I closed my eyes, lurched my way through the stations, shifted to avoid the backpacks and the grumpy commuters locked into their earphones, and tried not to throw up.
Just get through today, I told myself. If life had taught me one thing, it was that the answers would come soon enough.
I was just opening the door to my room when Mr Gopnik appeared. He was still dressed in his workout gear – unusual for him after seven – and lifted a hand when he saw me, as if he had been trying to locate me for some time. ‘Ah. Louisa.’
‘I’m sorry I –’
‘I’d like to talk to you in my study. Now.’
Of course you would, I thought. Of course. He turned and walked back up the corridor. I cast an anguished look at my room, which held my clean clothes, deodorant and toothpaste. I thought longingly about a second coffee. But Mr Gopnik was not the kind of man you kept waiting.
I glanced down at my phone, then jogged after him.
I walked into the study to find him already seated. ‘I’m really sorry I was ten minutes late. I’m not normally late. I just had to …’
Mr Gopnik was behind his desk, his expression unreadable. Agnes was on the upholstered chair by the coffee table in her workout gear. Neither of them asked me to sit down. Something in the atmosphere made me feel suddenly horribly sober.
‘Is … is everything okay?’
‘I’m hoping you can tell me. I had a call from my personal account manager this morning.’
‘Your what?’
‘The man who handles my banking operations. I wondered if you could explain this.’
He pushed a piece of paper towards me. It was a bank statement, with the totals blacked out. My eyesight was a little blurry but just one thing was visible, a trail of figures, five hundred dollars a day under ‘cash withdrawals’.
It was then that I noticed Agnes’s expression. She was staring fixedly at her hands, her mouth compressed into a thin line. Her gaze flickered towards me and away again. I stood, a fine trickle of sweat running down my back.
‘He told me something very interesting. Apparently in the run-up to Christmas a considerable sum of money was removed from our joint bank account. It was removed day by day from a nearby ATM in amounts that were – perhaps – designed not to be noticed. He picked it up because they have anti-fraud software designed to identify strange patterns of use in any of our bank cards and this was flagged up as unusual. Obviously this was a little concerning so I asked Agnes and she told me it wasn’t anything to do with her. So I asked Ashok to provide the CCTV for the days concerned and my security people matched it up with the times of the withdrawals and it turns out, Louisa,’ here he looked at me directly, ‘the only person going in and out of the building at those times was you.’
My eyes widened.
‘Now, I could go to the banks concerned and ask them to provide the CCTV from their ATMs at the times the amount was taken, but I’d rather not put them to that trouble. So really I wanted to know whether you could explain what was going on here. And why almost ten thousand dollars was removed from our joint account.’
I looked at Agnes but she was still looking away from me.
My mouth had dried even more than it had that morning.
‘I had to do some … Christmas shopping. For Agnes.’
‘You have a card to do that. Which clearly shows which shops you’ve been in and you provide the receipts for all purchases. Which, up to now, I gather from Michael, you have done. But cash … cash is rather less transparent. Do you have the receipts for this shopping?’
‘No.’
‘And can you tell me what you bought?’
‘I … No.’
‘So what has happened to the money, Louisa?’
I couldn’t speak. I swallowed. And then I said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I – I didn’t steal anything.’ I felt the colour rising to my cheeks.
‘So Agnes is lying?’
‘No.’
‘Louisa – Agnes knows that I would give her anything she wanted. To be frank, she could spend ten times that in a day and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. So she has no reason to sneak around withdrawing cash sums from the nearest ATM. So I’m asking you again, what happened to the money?’
I felt flushed, panicky. And then Agnes looked up at me. Her face was a silent plea.
‘Louisa?’
‘Perhaps I – I might have taken it.’
‘You might have taken it?’
‘For shopping. Not for me. You can check my room. You can check my bank account.’
‘You spent ten thousand dollars on “shopping”. Shopping for what?’
‘Just … bits and pieces.’
He lowered his head briefly, as if he were trying to control his temper.
‘Bits and pieces,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Louisa, you realize your being in this household is a matter of trust.’
‘I do, Mr Gopnik. And I take that very seriously.’
‘You have access to the most inner workings of this household. You have keys, credit cards, intimate knowledge of our routines. You are well rewarded for that – because we understand this is a position of responsibility and we rely on you to not betray that responsibility.’