25th April 2008
I saw Tina Mahoney, Dan’s lover, this morning. She was walking towards me, on the other side of the road, with her nose spread flat on her face. Her eyes were black and puffy. Instinctively, I stepped to cross the road to sympathize with her, but she just glared at me, lengthened her stride and walked away. I can only assume that Dan had hit her and she blames me for some reason. I felt very guilty as I walked in to work, as though her injuries were all my fault.
At work, everything is going well. I’ve settled into a routine with Angus and the office is running like clockwork. Occasionally, he asks me to do field work, like the task I’ve been carrying out over the past two days. We have a client, the owner of a lingerie store, who suspects that a member of staff is stealing silk knickers. Very saucy! Angus suggested that I should pose as an accountant, checking stock. The owner was convinced that a member of staff was responsible for the thefts and not a customer because knickers were disappearing on a daily basis. That left me with three suspects – a senior member of staff in her mid-sixties, a junior member of staff in her early twenties who was very vain in her appearance and a male member of staff, a teenager learning the ropes. I quickly established that the sixtysomething was too straight-laced to be into silk underwear and that my initial suspect, the twentysomething fashion plate, was very efficient and conscientious. That left the male member, so to speak. I positioned myself at a desk and used my computer screen as a mirror. Sure enough, I noticed that the male member was taking regular bathroom breaks and when he did a pair of knickers would disappear from the stock. I presented my findings to the store owner who called the lad into his office. There, he told the lad to unzip his trousers and, sure enough, his manhood was encased in several pairs of silk knickers. I felt very embarrassed and sorry for him. He was dismissed on the spot, so no cause for celebration, and I do wonder where his fetish will lead him, hopefully not into serious trouble.
Hannah Howe 