Elsie had hoped that she would have been able to continue to admire him, a little longer at least. When she'd started working here six months ago, he'd seemed like a respectable man. Maybe a little less well put together than some of the other men in the office, no clean shave every morning, shoes unpolished, not the same manicured gleam that most of them had. But if anything, that leaned in his favour. There was something authentic in his less tailored appearance, as though he was happier for the world to see him without the adornments the others needed. What the rest of them were hiding could only be guessed at around the edges of the glamour, but he had felt real.

The first time she'd seen him slip a powder into a client's drink when she handed the tray over, she'd convinced herself it had been a trick of the light, gleaming on the buffed silver. The second time it happened, she'd wondered if it could have been some sweetener or nutritional supplement, or maybe he'd intended to put it in his own cup and hadn't been paying attention. When she saw a client leaving his office collapse in the lobby, convulsing, a soapy foam bubbling at the edge of his dry lips, she knew it was no illusion, no sweet sachet.

Even then, she hadn't told a soul. Who would she tell anyway? And of course, she'd been afraid. Willingly crossing a man that would do something like that, so casually, so seemingly innocuously, well, you'd have to be a fool. Elsie was no fool. Now, though, she needed something from him, and she had leverage. She steeled herself for the confrontation ahead. Her slender hand was steady as she reached for the intercom on her desk, red-nailed fingertip hesitating for a final moment over the button.

"Douglas, there's a client here to see you. Your four o'clock."