Carol clicked a tongue behind her teeth. “Sorry about that, love. Is Paperpress still in a pickle?”

Liv nodded. “I’m sure it’s just a rough patch.” She sat up straighter, wishing she’d kept this to herself. “Everything will be fine. Jake said I should speak to Essie and ask for a pay rise. I suppose I could ask her for more hours...”

“Well, why not? Be brave.”

It was something Liv could only manage by pretending to be Georgia Rory. “It’s just that, well, Essie has this presence. It makes me feel like a child when I’m near her.”

“There’s no need to put her on a pedestal.” Carol rolled her eyes. “Essie Starling is made of flesh and blood. She’s a human being, not a bloody deity.”

Her expression made Liv laugh, and she welcomed the light relief. She knew Essie was just a person. So why did she feel like such a mystery?

3

THE FLORAL TEACUP

Liv loved the city when it sparkled at night and also its daytime bustle. She particularly enjoyed when it was blinking to life early on Monday morning, when the people who propped it up emerged from the shadows—the street cleaners who swept up nightclub flyers and last night’s pizza crusts, the coffee vendors and the newspaper sellers. She felt a spirit of kinship with this unsung army of field officers. She nipped along back alleys and side streets, avoiding shop windows displaying things she couldn’t afford, until she emerged among the shiny office blocks in the heart of the city.

Her first job of the day was for Platinum, a large accountancy firm, where she worked five mornings a week from six thirty, for two hours. While most people were still in bed, Liv and her teammates changed loo rolls, wiped the inside of fridges, disinfected desks and emptied bins. They had to use branded cleaning products purchased by the company, so Liv couldn’t make her own natural products. She was careful to wear rubber gloves so the alcohol and bleach didn’t make the skin on her hands as dry as papyrus. All Platinum cleaners had to wear a navy tunic emblazoned with the company logo. Liv wondered if the uniforms indicated to the office staff who they could ignore.

The camaraderie of her coworkers almost made up for the horrible things she found in the bins, like holey socks, moldy bread and worse. There were always funny stories flying around about online dating, in-laws, people’s holiday plans and silly things their kids had said. She learned which new films were out on Netflix, and updates about celebrity love lives. By 7 a.m., Liv’s face and sides ached from laughing so much.