17
By ten o’clock on Saturday morning Rachel had made her way to Shoreditch, procured an overpriced coffee and picked up a selection of bite-sized breakfast pastries. The sweet, buttery aroma drifting through the gaps in their cardboard container was so good her stomach grumbled, audibly tormented by the promise of food. Resisting the urge to sink her head into the box and inhale its contents, she looked down at her phone to consult Google Maps again.
The address Tom had given her for today’s photo shoot was supposedly close now. She needed to concentrate on where she was going or she and her delicious-smelling croissants would sail straight past it.
A minute or so later Rachel was standing next to the bricked-up arch of an old railway bridge.Thiscouldn’t be it, surely? But allegedly she’d reached her destination, and she was definitely on the right street. She noticed there was a slender black wooden door in the right-hand side of the wall. Next to it, above a bell push, was a neat brass plaque withA24written on it.
Rachel checked Tom’s message again. Yep – that was the number he’d given her. This had to be the place.
Tentatively, she pressed the shiny round doorbell and heard a high, briskbrrrrrrringfrom within. There was a creak and the door opened inwards, its bottom catching on a thick coir-and-rubber mat that sat just behind it.
Tom’s spectacled face appeared, smiling, and he beckoned her inside. He took the box she was carrying and set it on the zinc worktop of a tiny kitchen area tucked into the near left-hand corner of what Rachel could now see was a cavernous space.
Despite the irregular texture and greyish tinge of the Victorian bricks that curved high over their heads, it felt new in here; the air smelled like fresh paint, carpet underlay and cleaning products.
The opposite wall – which at one stage must have been the other open side of the railway arch – featured a tall strip of window that stretched, gleaming, across its full width. Soft, moody light streamed in from the drab sky outside, illuminating what was clearly the studio area: a patch of floor that Rachel guessed was roughly three square metres, around which a collection of photographic equipment was arranged.
‘Bloody hell,’ Rachel said. ‘This is quite a place.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Tom beamed. ‘I managed to get it cheap, there was a cancellation … You’re early, though – Zack with aKisn’t due until elevenish. I’m just experimenting a bit with the light in here so I can decide what to do with him. In fact, you can help me with that.’
‘Sure,’ Rachel said. ‘I thought you might need a hand setting up. I brought food too.’
‘I saw that, you’re a legend. I’m starving.’ Tom dug around in the box, pulling out a tiny pain au chocolat and devouring it in one bite. Rachel found a mini raisin whirl and ate it only slightly more gracefully, then gulped what was left of her coffee before depositing the cup in a recycling bin beneath the kitchen counter.
‘Also,’ Rachel said through a mouthful of almond croissant, ‘I thought it might make sense to have a catch-up on Zack before the shoot, and obviously I missed you last night.’
‘Yeah.’ Tom nodded, poised with a square of flaky jam-filled pastry between his finger and thumb. ‘The pub was weird without you.’
‘Sorry. Work thing. It was kind of unavoidable. Jack and I won a big pitch and the MD laid on free drinks to celebrate at the local. We couldn’t not go.’
‘We?’ Tom said, his forehead creasing slightly. ‘Weas in you and Jack, your cheating ex-boyfriend turned workmate? So, what … You’re buddies now?’
Rachel turned away from him to riffle through the kitchenette’s cupboards in search of a glass. She found one, then filled it from the cold tap.
‘We’re notbuddies,’ she said when she was facing him again. ‘But we’re getting on okay, I guess.Youwere the voice of reason who said I should give working with Jack a try, at least until I found another job. We could hardly function as a team if I spent every spare minute imagining his slow and painful death, could we? So I’ve pressed pause on the murder-plotting for now … Bloodlust is never a good look on redheads, anyway.’
‘I don’t thinkbloodlust is really the issue,’ Tom muttered, then cleared his throat and pointed at the stainless-steel fridge. ‘Whatever. There’s milk in there, and loads of coffee pods and tea stuff in the drawer. Help yourself while we’re here.’
‘Will do.’ Rachel nodded, wondering whether last night’s encounter with Jack was still hanging on her, fusty and lingering like stale cigarette smoke. She realised she felt embarrassed. Tom was shrewd and rational, and he’d consider it the height of stupidity to get close to someone who’d already proved they couldn’t be trusted. Rachel didn’t want to dent Tom’s good opinion of her, nor think too much about whether he might be right.
‘So, Zack …’ she said, hopeful that focusing on the task at hand might soften the sudden spikiness of the atmosphere.
‘MrHow to Wear a White T-Shirt,’ Tom said, eyebrows raised. He gestured at his torso. ‘Do you think he’ll tell me I’m doing it wrong?’
Rachel sipped her water and shook her head. ‘You’re not,’ she said, taking in his plain white top, blue Levi’s and the vintage Fair Isle cardigan that was hanging off his shoulders. ‘At least,Idon’t think you are.’
His T-shirt pulled tighter against his stomach as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and smiled, and Rachel flashed back to inadvertently eyeing up his abs on the morning she’d seen him in the park.Awkward.
She wished she could delete that image from her brain’s SD card; she really shouldn’t have it. It felt like the copy ofForeverby Judy Blume that was passed around her Year 9 class until Sister Philomena confiscated it. Inappropriate. Contraband.
‘Did you know,’ she said to cover her unease, ‘that Zack’s main musical influence is the California scene of the late sixties? Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills and Nash … I was raised on that stuff. I wonder if he’s any good …Also, he’s been romantically linked with several of the other influencers on our list; I believe there was a very messy break-up with Alyssia Ahmadi.’
Tom’s eyes were round. ‘Where are you getting all this?’ he asked, amused.
‘Here and there,’ Rachel said, shrugging. ‘There’s loads of stuff about him online, obviously. He even has a Wikipedia page.’
‘Wow. Okay, so I guess it’s best to avoid romantic relationships when you chat to him – but maybe use the music thing as a hook to get him talking about honesty and truth as ideas. Loop him around to the theme of the exhibition via something we know he’s into.’