The Quorum Read Online Free Page B

contacts or loyalties.
    As she bent over in her chair to reach her internal directory from her bottom drawer, her stomach heaved. Gulping back sick, she hurried to the Ladies.
    * * *
    One loo was occupied but the other was free. Apart from a midmorning cup of tea, there was nothing to come up but clear fluid. It wasn’t much of a spasm and settled down almost immediately. She washed her face clean and started to rebuild her make-up. The lighting in the Ladies was subdued and the decor was ugly, walls covered in wavy lumps like an ice cave. She supposed it had been designed to prevent loitering.
    Pomme came in for a pee. She greeted Sally cheerfully, and, after a quick and painless tinkle, chatted as she made a kiss-mouth and retouched her lips.
    ‘That bleedin’ door is stuck again,’ Pomme said, nodding at the occupied stall. ‘Or someone has been in there for a two-hour crap.’
    Sally looked at the shut door. There was no gap at the bottom to show feet.
    ‘Have you noticed how that happens in this building?’ Pomme said. ‘Doors lock when you ain’t lookin’, or come unlocked. The lifts have lay-overs in the Twilight Zone. Even them security keys don’t work most of the time. Must be bleedin’ haunted.’
    The PA left, her face requiring considerably less help than Sally’s. Finally, Sally was satisfied. She put her make-up things back in her bag. Turning to leave, she heard a muttering.
    ‘Hello,’ she asked the closed door.
    There was a fumbling and the ‘occupied’ flag changed. The door pulled inwards.
    ‘April,’ she said, looking.
    The woman lolled on the closed toilet, eyes fluttering. She’d had a bad nosebleed and her man’s dress shirt was bloodied. The bottom half of her face was caked with dried blood and flecked with white powder. Sally hadn’t known she did coke. Or that things could get so bad with a supposedly ‘fun’ drug. April tried to speak but could only gargle. She pinched her nose and winced, snorting blood.
    Sally wondered if she should get two tampons from the dispenser and shove them up April’s nose. Instead, she wet a paper towel and tried to clean April’s face. Her friend was as compliant as an exhausted three-year-old. Most of the blood was sticky on the floor of the stall.
    ‘Pressure,’ April said, over and over, repeating the word like a mantra. ‘Pressure, pressure, pressure...’
    Sally wondered how she was going to get April out of the building and home without anyone noticing. She told April to stay while she went and got her coat and bag. When she came back, April was standing and almost coherent.
    ‘Sal,’ she said, smiling as if she hadn’t seen her for days, ‘things are just fine up here. Except for...’
    Sally tried to put April’s hat on her, but she wasn’t comfortable and kept tilting it different ways, examining herself in the mirror. Her shoulders heaved as if she alone could hear music and wanted to dance. Sally settled the coat around April’s shoulders and steered her out of the loo.
    The lift was on the floor, so she was able to get April straight in. If she could get her down to Reception and out into the square and find a cab, she could say April was taken ill. A nasty gynaecological problem would go unquestioned. Those were mysteries men didn’t want to penetrate.
    She stabbed the ground floor button and the doors closed. If they got quickly past Heidi, she could limit the damage. But the lift was going up, she realised. To the Penthouse. April was almost writhing now, and chanting ‘pressure, pressure, pressure’ until the word lost all meaning.
    She slipped an arm around April’s waist and tried to hold her still. April laughed as if tickled and a half-moustache of blood dribbled from one nostril. The doors parted and Tiny got in. He was hunched over in an unfamiliar position of subservience, grinning with desperate sincerity as he looked up to his companion. The other man, a human reptile of indeterminate age and indistinct