Chapter 13: Rain on Piccadilly

I didn't hand over my keys.

I took the lease out of my coat pocket and unfolded it on top of his clipboard.

"Tenant, Laura Kendrick," I said. "From November first. That was yesterday."

He read it.

He turned the page and read the signatures.

"This is Garland's workshop," the new man said.

"Garland's business. My arch." I took the lease back. "You can come in. They can't."

The locksmiths were already walking to their van.

"Cash job, mate," one of them called. "Not a court job. Sorry."

Behind me the lane was filling up.

The old cutter came round the corner with his flask.

The apprentices came from the bus stop, the boy with his hood up, the girl with her pencil already in her bun.

The six bench workers came in twos.

Nobody said a word to the man in the fleece.

They walked past him, through the green doors, and sat down at their benches.

They didn't pick up a needle.

They just sat there in their coats, with their hands on the wood.

He followed them in and stood by the stove with his clipboard.

"I'll be brief," he said. "As Head of International, I've reviewed the London operation."

"When?" the old cutter asked.

"Over the weekend."

"Which weekend? You landed Saturday."

He ignored that and clicked his pen.

"The workshop has failed financially. I'm certifying that today. All eleven positions are terminated as of this morning. Statutory pay will follow."

He signed a sheet on the clipboard, right there by the stove, and tore off a copy.

He held it out to Peggy.

Peggy looked at it and didn't take it.

He put it on her bench, beside her thimble.

"There's an order for sixty trunks on that wall," I said. "Four hundred and eighty thousand pounds. It's in the books you reviewed."