The Last Letter from Your Lover

who’s sleeping with someone else.’ He steps past her, ignoring the coffee she’s holding. ‘I’ll see you around, Ellie.’
    She hears his footsteps fading down the stairs. He doesn’t slam the door, but there’s an uncomfortable air of finality in the way it closes. She feels numb. She places the coffee carefully on the table, and then, after a minute, steps over to the answerphone and depresses ‘play’.
    John’s voice, low and mellifluous, fills the room. ‘Ellie, I can’t talk for long. Just wanted to check you’re okay. Not sure what you meant last night. I miss you too. I miss us. But look . . . please don’t text. It’s . . .’ A short sigh. ‘Look. I’ll message you as soon as we . . . as soon as I get home.’ The sound of the receiver clicking down.
    Ellie lets his words reverberate in the silent flat, then sinks on to the sofa and remains perfectly still, while the coffee grows cold beside her.

Dear Mr B–
    Re; 48 T– Avenue
    . . . to reiterate, I understand the house purchase will now be in your name only and will not send any further correspondence to be signed to your existing address until you return on the 14th.
    Letter, opened in error by Female

22
    FAO: Phillip O’Hare, [email protected]
    From: Ellie Haworth, [email protected]
    Excuse me for contacting you like this, but I’m hoping that as a fellow journalist you will understand. I am trying to trace an Anthony O’Hare who I guess would be the same age as your father, and in a Times column of last May you happened to mention that you had a father of the same name.
    This Anthony O’Hare would have spent some time in London during the early 1960s, and a lot of time abroad, especially in central Africa, where he may have died. I know very little about him other than he had a son with the same name as you.
    If you are he, or know what became of him, would you please email me? There is a mutual acquaintance who knew him many years ago and would dearly like to find out what became of him. I appreciate this is a long shot, as it is not an uncommon name, but I need all the help I can get.
    All best
    Ellie Haworth
    The new building is set in a part of the city Ellie has not seen since it was a random collection of shabby warehouses, strung together with unlovely takeaway shops she would have starved rather than eaten from. Everything that was in that square mile has been razed, swept away, the congested streets replaced with vast, immaculately clad squares, metal bollards, the odd gleaming office block, many still bearing the scaffold cauls of their nascence.
    They are there for an organised tour to familiarise themselves with their new desks, the new computers and telephone systems before Monday’s final move. Ellie follows the Features party through the various departments while the young man with the clipboard and a badge marked ‘Transfer Co-ordinator’ tells them about production areas, information hubs and lavatories. As each new space is explained to them, Ellie watches the varying responses of her team, the excitement of some of the younger ones, who like the sleek, modernistic lines of the office. Melissa, who has clearly been there several times before, interjects occasionally with information she feels the man has left out.
    ‘There’s nowhere to hide!’ jokes Rupert, as he surveys the vast, clutter-free space. She can hear the ring of truth in it. Melissa’s office, on the south-eastern corner, is entirely glass, and overlooks the whole Features ‘hub’. Nobody else in the department has their own office, a decision that has apparently rankled with several of her colleagues.
    ‘And this is where you’ll be sitting.’ All the writers are on one desk, a huge oval shape, the centre spewing wires that lead umbilically to a series of flat-screened computers.
    ‘Who’s where?’ says one of the columnists. Melissa consults her list. ‘I’ve been working on this. Some of it’s still fluid. But Rupert, you’re here. Arianna, there. Tim, by the chair, there. Edwina . . .’ She points at a space. It reminds Ellie of netball at school; the relief when one was picked from the throng and allotted to one team or the other. Except nearly all of the seats are taken and she is still standing.
    ‘Um . . . Melissa?’ she ventures. ‘Where am I supposed to be sitting?’ Melissa glances at another desk. ‘A few people will have to hot-desk. It doesn’t make sense for everyone