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not.’
    Georgie was obviously someone who found laughter contagious because she joined in. ‘That’s very revealing,’ she said, shaking her head. Georgie had a warm, open face; you could chat to her if she sat next to you on a bus. Kelly saw Georgie watching her before her attention was taken by something else. She cocked her head. ‘What’s that noise?’
    Kelly looked up at the beamed ceiling. ‘It’s pigeons. They’re in the roof. This building was derelict for nearly fifty years. When they began the renovations, there were thousands of them living up there and in the clock tower at the end of the building. They had to get a specialist team in to remove their droppings. Pigeon shit is highly toxic.’
    Georgie was nodding. She tapped her chest. ‘I heard it’s bad for the lungs.’
    ‘They cleared them all out, mended the roof, but they wouldn’t stay away. It drives Christos mad. If even a small hole remains, they get in.’ She paused. ‘Once they’re in, they can’t find the way out. They’re there till they die.’
    There was a small pause. ‘Trapped,’ Georgie said, almost to herself. ‘Dying, trying to escape.’
    Kelly looked at her and felt something pass between them. She watched as Georgie’s smile faded and a frown appeared in its place.
    Georgie made a movement to come towards her and then stopped, uncertain. ‘Can I help you? Are you OK? Here.’ She pulled out a business card and handed it to Kelly. Kelly put it on the arm of the chair, staring down at the mobile number.
    No one can help me, Kelly thought, no one at all. I’m all alone. She heard the heavy tread of her husband on the stairs. She turned away from Georgie and stared out of the windows at the teeming life of the city below her.

5
     
    G eorgie was standing in Angus Morton’s office waiting for the big boss to arrive. She was on her feet because the piles of paper on his desk had mated with those on the shelves and produced more piles that now occupied the two chairs this side of the desk. She saw that the wastepaper bin was now on top of a further pile. She wondered if Angus was turning into a hoarder; she’d seen a TV programme once where a house owner had to crawl through a two-foot gap to get into any room, such was the level of clutter. She was imagining Angus digging through layers of paperwork when she heard him walking down the corridor, the sound of more papers slapping against his thigh.
    He had rolled the pile in his hand into a tube and as he said hello and sat down behind the desk he used the papers as a baton to thump out a finale to the tune in his head. ‘How did it go this morning?’
    ‘Good, good,’ Georgie lied, feeling like one of those idiots in
The Apprentice
. Angus had recently promoted her and she sometimes wondered if he’d done it for his own amusement – to see her grey-haired, pot-bellied colleagues mutter into their pints of bitter. She’d only joined the force a year ago, and still felt she had a lot to prove.
    Angus was in his late forties with attractive salt and pepper hair. He was a big, tall man but moved with a surprising grace that she found mesmerising to watch. She hated herself that she fancied him, that she was an office cliché – he was nearly twice her age, married and with kids. It was so inappropriate it was laughable, which was exactly why she wanted it so much. She felt the familiar blush beginning to creep up her neck and forced herself to control it. She would die a thousand deaths if he found out how he populated her night-time thrashings in her tiny single bed back home.
    She turned round as Mo arrived.
    ‘Here, Georgie, I got you a coffee.’ Mo handed her a take-out from the café near their offices. ‘And a side order of sausage.’ He laughed and handed her a paper bag.
    She stood there with the items in her hand and glanced at Angus. He was making no effort to hide his smirk.
    ‘You know you can take it further if you want,’ Angus said kindly. ‘Make