The Other Hand by Chris Cleave Read Free Book Online Page A

you’d just play the bloody game. Maybe you don’t realise just how big you are now, Sarah. Your next job could be editing a national newspaper.”
    I sighed. “How thrilling. I could put topless girls on every page.”
    My missing finger itched. I looked back down at the police patrol car. The two officers were putting on their uniform caps. I tapped my mobile against my front teeth.
    “Let’s go for a drink after work, Clarissa. Bring your new man if you like. I’m bringing Andrew.”
    “Seriously? Out in public? With your husband’? Isn’t that terribly last season?”
    “It’s terribly five years ago.”
    Clarissa tilted her head at me.
    “What are you telling me, Sarah?”
    “I’m not telling you anything, Clar. I like you too much to tell . I’m just asking myself, really. I’m asking if maybe the kind of choices I made five years ago weren’t so bad after all.”
    Clarissa smiled resignedly. “Fine. But don’t expect me to keep my hands off his hunky thighs under the table, just because he’s your husband.”
    “You do that, Clarissa, and I’ll make you junior horoscopes editor for the rest of your natural life.”
    My desk phone rang. I looked at the time on its screen. 10.25 AM . It’s funny how these details stay with you. I picked up the phone and it was reception, sounding bored to distraction. At Nixie we used reception as a sin bin—if a girl got too bitchy on the editorial floor, we sent her down to do a week on the shiniest desk.
    “There are two policemen here.”
    “Oh. They came in here? What do they want?”
    “Okay, let’s think about why I might have dialled your number.”
    “They want to talk to me?”
    “They did good when they made you the boss, Sarah.”
    “Fuck off. Why do they want to talk to me?”
    A pause.
    “I could ask them, I suppose.”
    “If it isn’t too much trouble.”
    A longer pause.
    “They say they want to shoot a porny film in the office. They say they’re not real policemen and their willies are simply enormous.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake. Tell them I’ll be down.”
    I hung up the phone and, looked at Clarissa. The hairs on my arms were up again.
    “The police,” I said.
    “Relax,” said Clarissa. “They can’t bust you for conspiracy to run a serious feature piece.”
    Behind her the flatscreen was showing Jon Stewart. He was laughing. His guest was laughing too. I felt better. You had to find something to laugh about, that summer, the number of places that were going up in smoke. You laughed, or you put on a superhero costume, or you tried for some kind of orgasm that science had somehow missed.
    I took the stairs down to the lobby, speeding up as I went. The two police officers were standing rather too close together, with their caps in their hands and their big, sensible leather shoes on my black marble. The young one was blushing horribly.
    “I’m so sorry,” I said.
    I glared at the receptionist and she grinned back at me from beneath her perfect blond side parting.
    “Sarah O’Rourke?”
    “Summers.”
    “Excuse me, madam?”
    “Sarah Summers is my professional name.”
    The older policeman looked at me with no expression.
    “This is a personal matter, Mrs O’Rourke. Is there somewhere we can go?”
    I walked them up to the boardroom on the first floor. Tones of pink and violet, long glass table, more neon.
    “Can I get you a coffee? Or tea? I mean, I can’t absolutely guarantee it’ll come out as coffee or tea. Our machine is a bit…”
    “Perhaps you’d better sit down, Mrs O’Rourke.”
    The officers’ faces glowed unnaturally in the pinkish light. They looked like black and white movie men, coloured in by a computer. One older, the one with the bald patch. Maybe forty-five. The younger one, with the blond cropped hair, maybe twenty-two or twenty-four. Nice lips. Quite full, and rather juicy looking. He wasn’t beautiful, but I was transfixed by the way he stood and cast his eyes down deferentially when he