Her manner was quiet and unassuming. Harold overheard a young chap saying, “You forget she’s a woman really.” Within a matter of days there were reports that she had brought an unprecedented order to the financial department. But this did not seem to stop the impersonations and laughter that now filled the corridors. Harold hoped she didn’t hear. He watched her sometimes in the canteen with her sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. She had a way of sitting with the young secretaries and listening, as if she, or they, were not there at all.

It was when he picked up his briefcase to go home one evening that he heard a snuffling sound from behind a cupboard door. He tried to walk past, but the noise didn’t stop. He turned back.

Edging the door open, to his relief he had found nothing at first, just boxes of paper. Then the sound had come again, more like a sob, and he had discovered a squat figure, pressed against the wall, with her back to him. Her jacket tugged at the seam that ran the length of her spine.

“I do beg your pardon,” he’d said. He had been on the point of closing the door again and rushing away, when she had started to weep.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s I who should apologize.” Now he was standing half in the cupboard and half outside it, with a woman he didn’t know crying into manila envelopes.

“I’m good at my job,” she said.

“Of course.” He glanced down the corridor, hoping one of the younger chaps would appear and talk to her. He had never been very good with emotion. “Of course,” he said again, as if saying it repeatedly would be enough.

“I’ve got a degree. I’m not stupid.”

“I know,” he said, although, of course, this was not strictly true; he knew almost nothing about her.

“Then why is Mr Napier always watching? As if he’s waiting for me to make a mistake? Why must they all laugh?”

Their boss was a mystery to Harold. He didn’t know whether the rumours about the kneecapping were true, but he had seen the man reduce the toughest landlords to jelly. Only the previous week Napier had fired a secretary for touching his desk. He said, “I’m sure he thinks you are a very good accountant.” He simply wanted her to stop crying.

“I need this job. It’s not as if the rent pays itself. But I’m going to resign. Some mornings I don’t even want to get up. My father always said I was too sensitive.” It was more information than Harold knew what to do with.

Queenie dropped her head low, so that he could see the soft dark hairs at the nape of her neck. It reminded him of David, and he felt a rush of pity.