Judicial Whispers Read Online Free PDF

here. She’s starting today. Yes, that’s right.’ The vowels stretched like elastic. ‘Right. Thanks ever so.’ Nora flipped a switch and smiled up at Rachel. ‘If you’d like to go up to Mr Rothwell’s office – fourth floor – Denise will meet you at the lift. Mr Lamb will be joining Mr Rothwell and he’ll show you your office.’
    Rachel thanked her and went over to wait for the lift. Nora ran an expert eye over Rachel’s trimly clad figure. Good legs, nice face. Definitely more of a looker than the other three women solicitors in the firm. Only a matter of time before the office wolves got to her. And, thought Nora, as she patted her stiffly lacquered chestnut hair, there were more than a few of them about, as Nora herself could testify.
    ‘Good luck, dear,’ murmured Nora as the lift doors closed on Rachel. Then she turned back to the flashing light on the switchboard, cancelled it with a smart flick of her crimson fingernail, and sang into the mouthpiece, ‘Good morning, Nichols and Co. Can I help you?’
     
    While Rachel made polite small talk with Mr Rothwell, Felicity stood wedged between a glum body of office workers all the way from Clapham North to Moorgate. She’d hoped she might get a seat so that she could do her make-up, but now even the possibility of a quick sprint to the Ladies at work to do it there seemed to be receding.
    ‘Come on, come on!’ she muttered under her breath as the train ground to a halt between Borough and London Bridge. Minutes passed like ages. The rest of the passengers sighed,shifted their weight, rattled their newspapers. No one looked at anyone else. Eventually the train lurched forward, and at nine-ten Felicity was struggling breathlessly up the stationary, out-of-order escalator at Moorgate.
    She scuttled through the revolving doors of the offices of Nichols & Co at nine-twenty. ‘Morning, Nora!’ she called out, and Nora fluttered a manicured hand back at her and replied, ‘Morning, Fliss! I’d go up the back stairs if I was you, love, because Mr Lamb’s going round like a bloody Dalek, checkin’ on everyone.’
    ‘Ta.’ Felicity dodged up the stairs just as the lift doors opened, and took them two at a time to the third floor. She hovered by the fire door, waited until the coast seemed clear, and then sped across to her desk. Four pairs of eyes, those of Felicity’s fellow secretaries, watched her as she stuffed her coat and bag hurriedly under her desk just as the figure of Mr Lamb, the office manager, appeared from the lift. He came over to her desk, smiling unpleasantly and tapping his thigh with a sheaf of papers. He was a squat, balding man in his mid fifties, obnoxiously officious, and with a personal relish for humiliating the more attractive young female members of staff.
    ‘Good morning, Felicity,’ he said. His voice had a nasal Essex twang which Felicity particularly disliked. He stood tapping his thigh for a few more seconds. Here it comes, she thought, and tried to quell the heaving of her chest after her sprint upstairs.
    ‘Morning, Mr Lamb,’ she murmured.
    ‘Not a very auspicious start to the week, really – would you say?’
    ‘Sorry, Mr Lamb?’ Felicity looked up at him with wide brown eyes, her voice soft and surprised.
    ‘I happened to be coming out of the lift as you were making your way up the back stairs. Twenty minutes late. Bit of a record even by your standards, wouldn’t you say?’
    ‘The train got stuck at London Bridge,’ replied Felicity, and began to open her desk drawer as though preparing to start work.
    ‘Yes, your train
always
seems to get stuck at London Bridge, doesn’t it? I really don’t understand how nobody
else’s
train ever gets stuck.’ Mr Lamb seemed to be enjoying his own heavily sarcastic humour.
    ‘Yes, well, sorry, Mr Lamb.’ Felicity stuck her chin in the air and looked straight at him.
    ‘Apart from being late,’ continued Mr Lamb as he surveyed her, ‘I think it would be an idea