And when it came to dead fictional fiancés, she kept right on lying.
Was it too late to tell Millie the truth about Gil? To tell everyone the truth?
The question plagued her. ‘When, when, when?’ her conscience demanded. And, ‘Too late, too late, too late,’ the devil kept saying smugly. Bad friend to Millie. Too late to tell the Mead that Gil had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. That time had passed. Her detractors within the archaeology world and the university system would flay her if she did.
‘What did I tell you?’ they would say smugly to each other. ‘I always knew she was too reckless to hold down a position of responsibility, no matter what pull her family name has in high places.’ Then they’d shake their heads and say what a loss Charlotte’s parents had been to archaeology with one breath, and castigate them for being too bold on the other. ‘Crazy runs in the family,’ they’d say. ‘And the godmother was cut from the same cloth. Always chasing rainbows. No wonder poor Charlotte has trouble separating fantasy from reality …’
‘Charlotte!’
A distant voice, sharp and concerned.
‘What?’ Charlotte blinked and there was Millie. Tortoiseshell glasses framing earnest hazel eyes set in a heart-shaped face.
‘You didn’t hear me come in. You didn’t hear me calling your name.’
‘Sorry,’ murmured Charlotte. ‘Must’ve been daydream ing.’
Millie winced. Probably because she thought Charlotte had been spending a little too much time in that state of late.
‘What’s up?’ said Charlotte, determined to forestall any actual complaint about her not entirely firm hold on reality.
Millie hesitated. Millie fidgeted. Millie was not in a good place right now and Charlotte didn’t quite know why. Time to ask Millie what was wrong and see if there was any way in which she could help. Good friend, Charlotte. Good friend.
‘Don’t kill me,’ said Mille anxiously.
‘O-kay,’ said Charlotte carefully. Not quite the response she’d been expecting.
‘I was only trying to help,’ said Millie next.
‘And?’
‘And I emailed the Research Institute in PNG to see if they had a photo of Gil anywhere that they could send to you. A memento. Something tangible for you to remember him by. I, ah, signed it in your name.’
‘And?’ said Charlotte, with an impending sense of doom.
‘And his secretary wrote back and said she’d see what she could find and was it okay to send everything to your university address. To which I said yes.’
‘And?’
‘And there’s a huge packing box downstairs, addressed to you from PNG. I think it might be Gil’s effects.’
Charlotte blinked. ‘His … effects?’
Millie nodded. ‘I swear all I asked for was a photo. I never once implied that you were his next of kin or that you wanted all his stuff. I mean, he does have other family, right? Parents and so forth.’
‘Right,’ said Charlotte faintly.
‘And you know how to contact them, right?’
‘Er … right.’
‘So, do you want the box up here or in your car? At the moment it’s sitting by the stairs on the ground floor.’
Charlotte blinked again. ‘I think I need to see it.’ Hopefully the trip down two flights of stairs would give her time to think.
A dozen flights of stairs would have been better.
All too soon, Charlotte and Millie stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring at a large removalist box with her name and university address on it. A nervous giggle escaped Charlotte. She countered by putting one hand to her mouth and the other hand to her elbow. The Standing Thinker pose.
‘So …’ said Millie. ‘Where do you want it?’
‘I’m thinking we take it upstairs for now,’ Charlotte muttered finally. ‘I may need to send it … on.’
There was no lift in the building.
‘I’ll get a trolley,’ said Millie. ‘And Derek.’
‘Thanks,’ murmured Charlotte, still staring at the box.
They got the box upstairs and into Charlotte’s office eventually. Neither Millie nor Derek seemed of a mind to linger. They fled.
Charlotte tried ignoring the box, at first. That didn’t go well.
The compulsion to open the box and find out exactly what the good souls at the PNG Research Institute had seen fit to send her took control. A pair of office scissors later and the flaps on top of the box sprung open. Tentatively, Charlotte folded them back.
The first thing she saw was a man’s collared business shirt, the really expensive wash-n-wear kind of dress shirt that didn’t need ironing and always looked fabulous. Size: Large. Colour: Ivory. A hat came next, an honest to God, Indiana Jones-style Akubra that looked as if it had been trampled by a herd of elephants and then dragged through a river backwards. Well-worn jeans came next, the kind that had earned their faded knees and ragged hems the old-fashioned way. Then some scuffed leather walking boots and thick socks. No other smalls whatsoever. Commando Indy.
Books came next, an extensive library of botany books and journals. Then came file upon file of research papers in haphazard order. A laptop had been tucked in between them. There was a round wall clock that still worked but told the wrong time. A handful of USB storage devices had been sealed inside an envelope. She unearthed a plastic takeaway container full of the stuff one might find in an office drawer. There were no photos.
The last thing she pulled from the box was a door tag with the name Dr G Tyler printed on it, the lettering no-nonsense black on a white background. A similar contraption graced her own door, and almost every other door in this building.
Charlotte stood back, ran unsteady hands through already wayward curls and surveyed the items strewn around her. She didn’t need to be an archaeologist to know what she had here.
Heaven help her, they’d sent her someone’s office.
The first thing to do was not panic.
So what if Dr G Tyler was going to be mighty unhappy when he discovered that his research wasn’t where he left it? That someone had packed up the contents of his office and shipped it off to … her? Belongings could be returned. Repacked and returned to sender with a brief note of apology for the confusion. Email! His computer would have his email address on it. She could send him an email and let him know that his office was on its way back to him. Of course, said email might not be received by him given that she also had his laptop, but surely the man would be accessing his emails from another computer. He’d be doing that, surely?
Unless the man was dead.
‘I did not wish you dead,’ she muttered. ‘Please don’t be dead. You’ll get your stuff back, I promise. Or if you do happen to be dead, I’ll make sure this gets to your family.’ Only … what if he had a wife? Children! ‘I’ll explain everything,’ she said fervently. No way would she allow G Tyler to emerge from this mess with a reputation as a cheating, lying husband with a mistress on the side. ‘I will come clean.’
I promise.
Greyson