Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French

shout when he played tag with me in the park near our house. It used to make me feel scared even then. I pulled my hand from his.
     'Just as beautiful in the light,' he said.
    'I'm sorry," I said. 'I don't... I can't...'
"Don't be sorry.'
'I mean, it was a stupid mistake.'
     "Oh, I don't think so," he said with a smile. "It's Rees, by the way. In case you don't remember.'
'I don't want to remember. I was drunk. That's all.' "You were wild.' 'I'm going now.' "No, you're not.'
     I put out my hand for the phone but he grasped me tightly by the wrist and wrenched me towards him. 'Let go."
     'Don't tell me you don't want it again. Not after our night together."
"Let go," I said, more firmly.
"You wanted it then, just as much as I did. You said ' "Don't be ridiculous."
     "Married, are you?" he said, twisting my wrist so that my ring showed. "Who to? Which poor sod? Let me see, is it David, or
Connor or Fred or Charlie or Wesley? Ah, Charlie, is it?' "Take your hand off me, you creep.'
     "I've got his number safely on my phone anyway. And some
I made myself look him in the eyes and the thought of him and what we'd done caused a wave of nausea to ripple through me. 'Don't be pathetic," I said. "Just let this go.'
    'And I've got your knickers. Remember? Lacy black things.' There was a red mist in front of my eyes. I jerked at my wrist but he held me firmly, fingers digging into my flesh. 'What?' I said. 'If you think you can blackmail me, you're even more stupid than you look.'
     "Yeah?" he said. "If you think you can just walk out of this door and pretend it didn't happen, then..."
     He didn't finish the sentence. I drew back the hand he wasn't
    holding and slapped his cheek as hard as I could, leaving the
stinging red marks of my fingers to fade slowly.
"You little bitch,' he gasped.
     "Excuse me, but if you're going to do that,' said a voice behind us, 'take it outside.'
     I'm going right now," I said. "And you'd better stay out of my way."
     'You're asking for trouble,' he shouted, as I left. 'And I swear you'll get it. You're fucked, you are.'
    6
    I walked around the area for an hour. Lunch was a nectarine I bought in the market. Even so, when I got back to the office I was still steaming. I was so angry with that man and so bitterly, contemptuously angry with myself and so humiliated and upset that I was in my own hot emotional fog. I stumbled into our so-called conference room and found Meg and Trish having a muttered conversation. Meg looked round at me and seemed embarrassed, as if I'd caught her doing something she shouldn't.
     'I had a word with Deborah,' she said, 'about the various problems we've been having.'
'Deborah?" I said. 'I thought she was at the conference." "She left early,' said Trish. "She just got in.' 'And?'
     "We raised some of the concerns with her. We wanted to hear her side of the story. She admitted that she had got behind. She
hadn't wanted to tell us about it because it was Lola's fault.' 'What?'
     Lola had joined us only a couple of months before. She was young and eager. She was learning fast but her responsibilities didn't extend much beyond making coffee and carrying files around.
'She was trying to involve her in the Cook account.'
     Trish embarked on a complicated story of what was supposed to have gone wrong but I interrupted her.
     "No, no, no," I said. 'That's rubbish. Leave this to me. I'm going to talk to Deborah myself. Ask her to come and see me in five minutes, will you, Trish? I need to make a call first."
    Even now I could see Deborah as Meg and I had seen her when we had first interviewed her a few months earlier. She was tall, immaculately groomed and had an air of complete confidence. It had almost felt as if she was the one conducting the interview. If we hadn't exactly warmed to her, well, that was part of the point. We weren't looking for a new best friend. We wanted someone hard-working, efficient and generally formidable. Deborah looked all of that as soon as she