‘Right.’ Henry put his teacup down on the mantelpiece. ‘Welcome to a crash course on the rudiments of the professional flirt. Lesson one: the all-important background check. Flick?’
Flick stood up. ‘Valentine is in charge of the recruitment of new clients, managing existing clients and, of course, drafting in new staff. But the background information you need on each new mark will be provided by me. As soon as a client contacts us, I follow up with a long series of questions. I won’t bore you with the details, but the end result is as complete a character portrait of the woman as I can manage.’
‘Flick has an incredible talent in this area,’ Valentine assured him. ‘A knack for being able to read between the lines.’
‘What husbands don’t know about their own wives is a lot!’ she smiled. ‘Often they insist their wives are angry and sullen when obviously they’re hurt and rejected or they have tastes that, with a little probing, I discover are theirs, not the wife’s at all. Or sometimes, when I ask what their wife really wants from life or truly enjoys, they have absolutely no idea … either it’s changed over the years or, in some extreme cases, they’ve never really bothered to find out in the first place.’
‘It’s no surprise that they’re experiencing difficulties,’ Valentine said.
‘Then I have to play detective,’ Flick continued. ‘What magazines are on her bedside table? Does she look at any catalogues? What was the last meal she ordered in a restaurant? Who does she admire? What does her best friend do? By the end, hopefully I’ve got a clearer idea of what kind of flirt she needs, what she needs to hear, who would be the best man for the job, and what would be the ideal point of interception. And if possible, I like to have a look at them myself. It’s amazing what you learn just watching someone go about their daily life for a few minutes. After I’ve drawn up my report, I make a few gentle suggestions to the client about how they might follow up on the service we provide; half the success of what we do depends on a husband making an effort to be more attentive as well. What you get from all this background research is a personality breakdown, a job brief, and a time and location for the flirt.’
‘Sometimes,’ Henry said, ‘that window of time is quite generous but sometimes, especially with working women, it can be a very narrow gap indeed.’
‘Tube trains!’ Jez shook his head ruefully. ‘Wait till you have to do a train job!’
‘Even a bus is better than the tube!’ Marco agreed.
‘With each brief, there’ll be a suggested, well-established flirt,’ Henry went on. ‘For example, Casting Agent, Parking Meter, Interval Drinks or Shopping. Don’t worry,’ he smiled. ‘We’ll go over all those later. After you’ve been trained, there’ll be a certain amount of creative leeway you can exercise, but in the beginning, there’s so much to concentrate on, that it’s best to stick quite rigorously to the script, so to speak.’
‘And then,’ Jez grinned, ‘all you have to worry about are two things: how can I get to her—’
‘And how can I get away from her!’ Marco cut in.
‘Always know your exit,’ Henry stressed. ‘Making contact is fairly easy … “Pardon me, my watch is slow, do you have the correct time?” Or, “Forgive me, I’m a little lost, I’m looking for Portman Square.” But after you’ve made contact, flirted, got them all excited, making a clean getaway is imperative.’
‘Remember,’ Jez added gravely, ‘not all our marks are married, some are single. You could get a Clinger.’
‘A Clinger?’
‘Ah! It’s terrible!’ Marco shuddered. ‘The way they run down the street after you! Or follow you into the gents. One, she tried to get in the same cab! I had to pretend to suffer from … what is it? Falling asleep, you know?’
‘Narcolepsy,’ Flick volunteered.
‘Oh, dear!’ This was alarming.
‘Normally I label the brief,’ Flick interjected quickly, ‘“PC” for “Possible Clinger”.’
‘Still, any woman can become tricky,’ Henry warned, ‘and knowing your nearest exit, having your departing lines well rehearsed and moving quickly are your greatest safeguards against an emergency situation.’
‘An emergency situation?’
‘Remember, Hughie,’ Valentine said, ‘this is a highly improvised profession, full of huge unknown variables. The truth is, any flirt can go wrong at any time.’
‘That’s how we lost Freddie.’
‘Freddie?’
No one had mentioned Freddie before.
‘Freddie was a rare case,’ Henry explained. ‘It’s highly unusual for an apprentice’s training to go so … so extremely wrong.’ His voice trailed off.
‘Lost him?’ Hughie felt a faint chill creeping up his limbs. ‘How?’
Marco leant in. ‘She was a Class A Clinger, Smith. Never, in all my years, have I ever seen anything like it!’
‘Yeah, she had a kind of energy,’ Jez recalled, ‘a kind of rolling around on the floor, possessed look in her eyes … like someone plugged her into a light socket. But Freddie didn’t clock she was mental – all he could see was that she was small and blonde.’
‘Beware the Small Blonde Ones!’ warned Marco. ‘From the first moment he spoke to her, you could just tell there was going to be trouble!’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He married her,’ Valentine said sharply.
Silence.
Suddenly Hughie’s shirt tightened around his neck, his skin prickled. A skull in the gardens of Arcadia.
‘But … I mean, married!’ He laughed hollowly. ‘That’s a bit extreme!’
‘She was a Clinger, Hughie.’ Valentine’s face was devoid of any emotion. ‘Never underestimate a Clinger.’
‘She started crying,’ Jez explained. ‘A classic Clinger move. And of course Freddie made a mistake: a big mistake. He put his arm around her. We tried to intervene, tried to get him out of there … thing was, she was small but strong …’
‘Never touch the mark!’ Marco shouted. (The whole thing was clearly too much for him.) ‘Never!’
‘Which brings us to the cardinal rule of our profession,’ Henry cut in, dragging the conversation back from the brink of hysteria. ‘No physical contact, young Smythe. Crossing a physical boundary invites anarchy. From the moment poor Freddie gave the Clinger a hug, his defences began to deteriorate; before he knew it, he lost sight of his exit, then he was buying her a drink, trying to cheer her up. In an hour, he was lost to us for ever.’
Valentine stood. ‘Distance, Hughie. The profession is a paradox – like being a physician. You must have compassion for them but you cannot help these women if you have no detachment. Remember that and you can have a wonderfully successful and lucrative career.’
‘And you’ll be shadowed for the first week or so,’ Henry said. ‘One of us will be with you every step of the way. Nothing can go wrong.’
Hughie swallowed, hard.
‘Nothing,’ Henry assured him, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
Still, the spectre of Freddie, the fresh-faced recruit who hadn’t managed his escape, cast a shadow across the proceedings.
The phone rang. Flick answered it. ‘The offices of Valentine Charles … yes … of course, sir, one moment please …’ She put the call on hold. ‘Mr Jonathan Mortimer on the line for you.’
Valentine