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felt for a very long time.

Chapter Eight

Once again the next morning at the office dragged unbearably. With still no respite from the incredible weather conditions, the city was again silent and stifling and the streets below were relatively empty. As I looked out of the office window, I wondered why I had bothered coming into work at all. Most people appeared to have simply chosen to stay at home and relax in the sunshine or, more probably, in the shade of their homes, watching the sun scorch and burn the world around them. Time seemed to run at a much slower rate than usual and I was sure that it had something to do with the way that I stared at the clock every five minutes, willing its hands to work their way quickly around to one o'clock.

With sunrise that morning, the heat had increased further still until it was now like a heavy, suffocating blanket which lay all around, smothering everything and everybody with its exhausting, relentless and inescapable power. Every newspaper and magazine carried concocted, charlatan explanations of events and mixed them with a generous and unhealthy number of stories about old-aged pensioners dying of dehydration in their homes and of the water in lakes and reservoirs falling to new record-low levels.

When one o'clock finally arrived, I gathered up the papers and forms that I needed Samantha to sign and, before leaving, called Robert into my room. He staggered in through the office door, looking flustered and exhausted. As he stood still and tried to compose himself, he wiped his fat, round and red face with an already damp handkerchief and leant against my desk. For a moment I stared at the picture of ill health that stood in front of me and I felt genuinely sorry for the man.

'I'm going out to see Miss Hill now,' I said. 'I'm not sure when I'll be back so could you look after things here for a while?'

Robert stood up straight and nodded. I noticed that his cotton shirt was drenched with sweat and that it clung tightly to his skin.

'Will you be all right?' I asked, worried about the exhausted condition that he was in.

'I'll be fine,' he wheezed. 'I'm just having a bit of trouble with this heat. It doesn't agree with me.'

'Are you going to be okay to look after the office?'

'I said I'll be all right!' he snapped and he looked up at me with an angry expression on his flustered face.

'I shouldn't be too long,' I said, attempting to reassure him and to disguise the fact that I intended to stay with Samantha for as long as I possibly could. 'I'm not expecting any calls and I don't think that there will anything that you can't deal with. If you do need to contact me. Miss Hill's number is in her file and that's somewhere in my filing cabinet.'

Robert nodded and turned to walk out of the room. I felt sorry for him in some respects - he was much older than me and I was sure that he resented my seniority in the office. He was normally able to rise above such feelings but the extreme heat and its effects on his desperately unfit body did nothing to help ease the situation.

I shoved the paperwork into my briefcase and grabbed my jacket before following Robert out of the office. I draped the jacket over my shoulder as it was far too hot to even think about wearing it. It was, in fact, far too hot to be wearing anything.

I left the office as quickly as I could and with it I left a grumbling assistant manager complaining to the rest of the staff. Although I feigned deafness, I could hear him telling them all how he was the one that really ran the branch - I just picked up the manager's salary at the end of every month. Regardless of his comments, I was in a good mood and was determined not to rise to the childish baiting of my staff. I walked ignorantly past them all and out of the building.

Before getting into my car, I stopped to pick up a bottle of wine. I walked past a little florist's shop and thought for a moment about getting some flowers for Samantha. Next to the florist's was a sweet shop and I wondered if chocolates might be better. An irrational paranoiac fear grew in my mind as I imagined foolishly that such