‘No, meet her right away,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to waste time on someone who’s no good. You need to find out if there’s a spark there or not. There’s no point spending time on some woman if there’s no spark.’

‘OK, I see what you mean,’ Gréta said. ‘Should I invite her to the annual get-together at work, or out to dinner somewhere?’

‘No!’ Stella yelped. ‘Absolutely not dinner for a first date. You don’t want to be too eager. And it would be a pain if you ended up having to sit through a whole dinner with some misery guts.’

‘She doesn’t come across as miserable,’ Gréta said, and Stella bit her lip. She was also thinking that it might not be easy for this apparently normal and rather pretty girl to be lumbered with Gréta for a whole evening.

‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘Ask her to meet for coffee, and be casual, y’know? Say, “Shall we get a coffee sometime this week?” Don’t come across as desperate; be confident, like you’re out on dates all the time. Girls like that.’

‘So just coffee, or coffee and cake? Or some kind of healthy cake so she can get the impression right away that I’m making an effort to not be too … solid?’

‘Jesus, Gréta! Just have what you want! Have cake, so at least she’ll get to see that you’re someone who enjoys life.’

Gréta laughed awkwardly. ‘OK, yes. I’m just stressed and then I overthink everything.’

Stella’s feeling was that once the girl had met Gréta in person, there would be no further dates, so it would be as well for Gréta to get some satisfaction out of the date; and that would be the cake.

‘Just try to relax,’ Stella said. ‘And just be yourself.’

‘OK,’ Gréta said, and Stella could hear her take a deep breath. ‘How are things at the ministry?’ 82

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, there’s that scandal over the rape case that seems to have got bogged down in the justice system. Have you heard anything about it?’

‘You know I’m just a cleaner here,’ Stella said. ‘I’m not a permanent secretary.’

‘Just wondering if you’ve heard anything in passing, when you’re having a smoke with the minister.’

‘Fuck off,’ Stella said, and ended the call, stowed her phone back in the waistband of her pants, unlocked the door using her card and backed through it, pushing it open as she went. Her arms were full of bags of waste and shredded paper, so she couldn’t see over them as she took the usual couple of steps to the container.

‘What would it cost for you to forget to shred stuff from a couple of bins and let me have it instead?’

The man asking the question was leaning against the waste-paper container, chewing gum with his mouth open. Stella started as if she was unconsciously about to defend herself and dropped the bags on the ground.

‘It’s OK, you’re safe with me,’ the guy said, and as if to demonstrate this, he raised his hands and took a few steps back into the car park.