Glacier Beat by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

London

13

Esi ignored the rattle of the underground and rolled over in her bed. It was, like most of the furniture in her tiny and expensive apartment, much shorter than she required. Esi curled her legs when she slept, often waking early each morning with cold toes and sore ankles as her feet poked out of the duvet and hung over the end of the bed. The two dining chairs beside the fold-down breakfast table were also too short, and her knees bumped the legs of the table as she tried to squeeze beneath it. She called it the trials of living in London and kept a list on the refrigerator door with things that she could do or buy that would make such trials easier.

It was a long list.

It was not finished.

But the first tube train of the morning did not wake her. Esi gave up on ever getting to sleep sometime earlier, around three o’clock that same morning. She tossed and turned for a while, then made a cup of so-called Nigerian Tea with evaporated milk, a generous spoonful of malted chocolate powder, and hot water from the kettle. The sugar kick did little to help Esi sleep but gave her some comfort as she took it to bed, wrapped the duvet around her body and sipped her tea while staring at the screen of her laptop. The light from the screen gave the plain walls of her austere apartment an almost cosy glow. But there was nothing cosy about the contents of her computer, and not even the comfort drink from home could help her decide what to do about the email.

She called in sick just before seven, and then, feeling all the better for making at least one decision, she made another, and contacted an investigative journalist whose work Esi had stumbled across a few times when compiling the list of scandals Sir Archibald Brunton had unleashed each time he opened his mouth in public. Given his role as the BIG ‘fixer’, Esi could understand why Nathaniel seemed to be permanently stressed, and as his unofficial personal assistant, Esi shared some of it. But as much as Madeleine Scott might appear to be the enemy, Esi had grown somewhat familiar with her work, and respected the lengths she seemed to go to uncover the unfortunate truths behind the scandals.

“What’s your name again?” Madeleine had asked when Esi called and Madeleine’s interest had been piqued. Esi didn’t doubt that the merest suggestion she knew something about Brunton International Group had been what had gotten her through the newspaper switchboard to Madeleine Scott’s direct line.

“Ngozi,” Esi said, thinking of one of the Nigerian women she most admired.

“And your surname?”

“Just Ngozi, for now.”

“Got it.” Madeleine had said. “And where do you want to meet?”

“Grosvenor Gardens,” Esi said. “Before lunch.”

“How about eleven?”

“That’s fine. I’ll be there.”

Esi tossed her mobile onto her bed, and then felt a rush of colour to her cheeks as she realised she had just given her private number to an investigative journalist, and thus revealed her true identity.

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