Pendulum by Adam Hamdy

Author:Adam Hamdy [Hamdy, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2016-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

Wallace tailed Marcie into a corridor flanked by a glass wall, which offered a view of an open-plan office and the city beyond. There were a dozen people in the spacious office, all busy at their big desks. The interior wall was lined with four more illustrations by the same artist featured in the lobby: the silhouette of a teenage girl at the top of a cliff, peering at a distant horizon; the same girl at the top of a high mountain looking at a twin-mooned starry night sky; standing on a rocky outcrop next to a high waterfall; walking in the ruins of an overgrown, once great city. Each image put the girl in an impossibly unreal, but breath-taking landscape, but unlike the image in the lobby, in each of these pictures the girl was alone.

Marcie led Wallace through her office towards an inner door on the other side of the room. Standing on the sleekly contoured desk that was set flush against the far wall was a photo of Marcie being hugged by a beamingly happy man.

‘My fiancé,’ Marcie explained, before giving a cursory knock and opening the inner door. ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked, as she stood aside and allowed Wallace to enter.

‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘Thanks.’

Wallace stepped into a spacious office. A four-seater couch seemed small pressed against the back wall. The coffee table immediately in front of it held large, expensive books. Beyond the table were two modern high-backed armchairs that faced a huge desk, which was covered with neatly ordered rows of documents. Behind it, seated in a black leather chair, was Philicia Byrne, her head bowed and her brow crumpled in deep concentration.

‘Let me know if you need anything,’ Marcie said to her boss.

‘Thanks, Marce,’ Philicia acknowledged without looking up.

Marcie pulled the door closed behind her. Wallace looked at Philicia and questioned her fundraising techniques. In order to get the meeting, he’d presented himself as a potential donor interested in making a six-figure contribution to Canopy. He wondered whether all prospective patrons were ushered into Philicia’s presence without so much as a greeting. His research told him that she was forty-eight, but she looked younger. Long black hair tumbled around her shoulders in delicately layered waves. Her unblemished skin was subtly tanned and her cheeks had a fleshy fullness that belied her slender frame. Wallace had worked with enough models to know that if Philicia’s cheeks were the result of surgical fillers, they had been expertly and expensively done.

He looked around the office. A bookcase lined the length of the opposite wall, broken only by another door. The shelves were carefully adorned with hardbacks, curios and a few photographs. Wallace stepped forward and saw that there was a framed photograph of Erin Byrne. It was beautifully lit, and behind the girl was a distressed red background of the sort that one only finds in photographic studios. Erin had her mother’s dark hair and smooth skin. Her wide eyes exuded longing and her full lips were ever so slightly parted as though she was about to whisper a secret.

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