Looking Good Dead

unsteadily, out of the room, glanced at the caller display, saw it was her best friend Lynn Cottesloe, and answered it.
    ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘how’re you?’ conscious that her voice was a little slurred.
    ‘I’m sitting in Orsino’s restaurant. Where are you?’
    ‘Oh, shit,’ Kellie said. ‘I’m – sho shorry.’
    ‘Are you OK?’
    Shit , Kellie thought. Shit, shit, shit! She had totally forgotten they were meant to be having lunch today. She looked at her watch. It was 1.15 p.m.
    ‘Kellie, are you OK?’
    ‘OK? Me? Absolutely,’ she said breezily.

10
    In the narrow room that doubled as the London office and showroom of BryceRight Promotional Merchandise Limited, Tom Bryce sat gloomily at his desk, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie at half-mast. He was shivering and thinking about putting his jacket back on. Bloody English weather. Yesterday it had been almost unbearably hot, today it was freezing.
    The place gave off the right image; it was a smart address, and although not big, the room was elegantly proportioned with large windows, and had the original stucco work on the ceiling. There was just enough space for desks for the five of them, a waiting area which was also the display area, and a tiny kitchenette behind a partition at the far end.
    The company name had been Kellie’s idea. A tad corny he had thought at the time, but as she had pointed out it was a name people would easily remember. BryceRight supplied business gifts and promotional clothing to companies and clubs. Its product lines ranged from overprinted pens, calculators, mouse pads and executive desk toys, to T-shirts, baseball caps, sportswear and trophies.
    After graduating from business school in Brighton, Tom had worked for one of the largest companies in the field, the Motivation Business, and then, a decade ago, supported by Kellie, had mortgaged himself up to the hilt and set up on his own. He had operated from his den and the two spare bedrooms in their home until shortly after Max was born, when he had accumulated enough capital to take on the lease at this prestigious, if cramped, address just off Bond Street, as well as a warehouse close to Brick Lane in east London.
    For the first six years the business boomed. He was a natural salesman, his customers liked him, everything was rosy. Then 9/11 had happened and for two days the phone had not rung. And it never really seemed to have rung with any consistency since.
    He employed four salesmen, two of whom were based here inLondon, one in the north of England and one in Scotland. Additionally his secretary, Olivia, was in this office, as well as his admin clerk, Maggie, who was in charge of customer liaison and product sourcing. He employed another four people at the warehouse, an order chaser, a quality control supervisor and two dispatch clerks. And that was where he had a lot of problems – probably from not being there enough himself.
    BryceRight had a blue-chip customer base, with some of the largest household names as clients. They supplied Weetabix, Range Rover, Legal and General Insurance, Nestlé, Grants of St James’s, as well as many much smaller clients.
    For the first few years he used to really enjoy coming into work, and he’d even relished the post-9/11 challenge for a time, but more recently with the latest economic downturn and ever-increasing competition his turnover had plunged to the point where he was no longer making enough money to cover his overheads. He was losing customers to the competition, existing customers were placing smaller orders, and just recently there had been a spate of fuck-ups which had lost him even more business.
    The in-tray on his desk was stacked with bills, some more than ninety days old. Yet again at the end of this month it was going to be a tough balancing act between the receivables and the debts to ensure the wage cheques did not bounce. And there would be, as always, the Kellie spending factor in that equation, also.
    She was smiling out from the silver frame on his desk, along with Max and Jessica, all three of them responding to something the photographer had said. It was a great photograph, in flattering soft focus, giving them a slightly dreamlike quality. Staring at her fondly, he hoped to God there were going to be no more unwelcome surprises from her for a while.
    How could he break it to her if they had to sell the house and downsize. And to what? A flat? How could he tell Max and Jessica that they might