Chapter Two

The clanging became more insistent. ‘I have to get out of here,’ Lacey thought. Suddenly, her eyes flew open. Heart thumping; her eyes roamed wildly, searching for the source of the ringing. She alighted on the illuminated device on her bedside table. It was 7am.

It was a dream. It had all been a dream.

Frantically, she threw herself out from under the covers and began pulling out garments from drawers and cupboards. A rush of dizzying nausea washed over her and she slumped back onto the bed for a moment, regaining her centre. She continued with her morning routine, slipping into her shirt and trouser suit, which she had ironed and pressed the night before. Her mother, a nurse, had already left for work, leaving Lacey alone in the house. Her head throbbed as anxiety and panic gripped her. Doing her best to ignore it, she shouldered her handbag and retrieved her portfolio from the dining room table.

‘I’m going to get this job. I’m going to get this job.’ She repeated her mantra the whole way down the road, inwardly buoying herself along as she made her way into the train station.

Plugging her headphones into her iPod she stood back as the train roared into the station. Joining the crush of people flowing on, she squeezed herself into a space and leaned against the seats of the train carriage prepared to just immerse herself in the music. No such luck, at the next stop an inordinately rude girl stepped onto the train. Lacey tried not to listen as she spewed profanities and verbal abuse into her mobile directed at some poor sod who was apparently at home and thereby unhindered by the affliction of rush-hour tube travel. Phone call over, angry girl then turned her fury on some poor fellow standing in front of her. Blasting him for his McDonald’s-own coffee breath and abject proximity to her in such a small and confined space; she muttered that situations such as this explained how people were convicted of ABH. Lacey exchanged an alarmed look with the lady standing opposite. Coffee breath tried to explain there was little manoeuvrability for him as angry girl pointed out some space behind him. To her irritation he refused to move into it. She huffed and puffed until the train finally pulled into Finchley Road where to everyone’s relief she alighted – Lacey assumed to wreak havoc for the community of the Jubilee Line.

A deluge of people replaced angry girl and others who got off and the train continued forward on its journey. A few minutes after departing the next station, the train heaved to an untimely stop somewhere within the tunnel. Most people didn’t particularly notice this fact, engrossed in morning headlines and assorted literature. Then the lights went out plunging the train into darkness. Lacey looked up at the carriage ceiling, expecting the overhead beams to come back on. But nothing happened. Trying to ignore the unease tugging at her consciousness, she studied her fellow passengers in the muted light. People on top of people. Bags pressed into the backs of others. Sighs of irritation. The hands on so many watches ticking down the minutes as they stood and sat in unfriendly silence, willing the train to move forward so they could attend to appointments, meetings and other working commitments.

The driver’s voice crackled through the intercom. It sounded alien and far away.
‘Sorry for the delay to your journey Ladies and Gents, I’m just waiting to hear what the problem is but hopefully we’ll be on the move again soon.’ A murmur of discontented grumbles passed through the carriage. Lacey tried to peer out, beyond the double layered windows into the tunnel but recoiled at seeing the red brick of wall mere inches from the train’s exterior. Breathing heavily she fished in her bag for the bottle of Rescue Remedy she had plucked from the bathroom cabinet before leaving the house. Her trusty aid for the nerve-inducing ordeal of the interview; she slipped a few drops onto her tongue now, relishing the taste of the calming ingredients as they dissolved in her mouth.

She swallowed and shifted slightly on her 4” black Louboutin heels. Discomfort was beginning to settle on her limbs as the time passed, slowly.

Chapter One

She couldn’t understand it. One moment she’d been sitting patiently in the lobby with her portfolio, alongside all the other girls in their starched white shirts and Zara trouser suits, waiting for her name to be called. The next she appeared to be suspended in some kind of alternate reality. The room, empty and dark with high ceilings and low-hanging chandeliers looked across between the hotel ballroom in The Shining and the decorated hall of her graduation ball. The red leather couch which had moments ago been occupied by two other girls, fidgeting and nervous, was now bare. Lacey made to stand up, causing something to rustle underfoot. She looked down to find the pages of her carefully constructed portfolio fanned out in a chaotic pile on the marble floor.

She tried to peer into the blackness and called out. ‘Is anyone there?’ But all that she heard was her own voice echoing back at her from the cavernous corners of the eerie gloom.

The job she had been about to interview for was as a Junior Copywriter within one of London’s top advertising agencies. Highly competitive, ruthlessly creative and the ideal beginning to her dream career. The application process had been a nightmare. As it turned out, thinking outside the box was not as easy as the woman on the phone had made it sound. ‘Just remember, she’d said. ‘You’re idea has got to be better than all the other hundreds of applicants.’ Lacey was sure she had meant it to spur her on, but she’d hung up the phone more apprehensive than ever.

The brief she’d been set was to develop a television ad campaign for Blue Star, the up-and-coming denim brand of the tweenage generation. So she’d brainstormed and called upon the prepubescent thoughts of her youngest sister and her friends and worked it all out on a big A3 flip pad from Rymans. Convinced she’d landed on a genius idea she’d run it past her Dad’s advertising pal who’d been in the business for ten or so years, and who had encouraged her to apply in the first place. He had tweaked and critiqued in red pen and handed it back to her to polish up. She’d cried with premature defeat and had then wiped her eyes, berated her self-doubt and got on with the task at hand. Happy now with the final result, involving gymnasts wearing the jeans and performing a series of routines in them to reveal their elasticity and comfort before teaming them with the sparkly halter tops favoured by her sister’s generation to take them from day to night; Lacey had sent off her application to Wyatt and Sullivan with immense trepidation.

Hardly daring to check the post, her email or her answer machine messages, she had immersed herself in mundane chores around the house, helping her mother with washing, shopping, cleaning and cooking. Anything to distract herself from thinking about what the outcome would be. This was the first proper paying job she had applied for since leaving university. Of course she had managed to secure the required work experience, the first placement via her Dad’s advertising buddy, Phil, and afterwards, through sheer determination and initiative. She had proved herself a remarkable asset and all five placements had resulted in glowing reviews and reams of examples for her portfolio.

The call from Wyatt and Sullivan had come exactly eleven days later, not that she’d been counting, from the same woman who had filled her with doubt over her application. She’d been granted an interview and was to appear at the firm’s London office two days later. As soon as the line had disconnected, she’d emitted a scream of unadulterated joy. The nerves had soon set in however as it dawned on her that she’d only made it past round one.

Somewhere in the depths of blackness a ringing started up, muffled at first but gradually gaining momentum. Lacey shut her eyes.