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About the Author: Antony Mann has been published many times in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Crimewave (UK). He is a winner of the Crime Writers Association UK Short Story Dagger, and also appeared twice in Ed Gorman's The World's Finest Mystery And Crime Stories.
It didn’t take me long to realise that Polly Pagnall didn’t feel the same way about me as I did about her. Frankly, it was no more than a minor setback. Polly started at Weston Matheson nine months after I did, not long after the New Year. She was in Accounts. I was in Legal, which meant for one thing that I earned a lot more money than she did. She was blonde—and according to her personnel file, twenty-seven years old. She was no great beauty, but she had a spark about her, an engaging brightness that made her attractive despite her less-than-perfect looks.
I had not long ended things with Moira when I first noticed Polly. She was learning the ropes sitting in on an inter-departmental meeting, which was basically just another opportunity for Stevens to blow his own trumpet about his latest marketing campaign. It always amuses me to watch the ‘creatives’ when they take the stage. They have such an overblown sense of their own value. The real work goes on behind those gaudy scenes, unglamorous and unsung.
Polly had been only a week or two with the company. I had seen her once or twice in the corridors on the 8th floor, but I hadn’t spoken to her. A smile and nod was as far as it had gone. But looking at her now as she sat quietly getting her bearings, I was quite taken with her. At one point I caught her eye and gave her a reassuring grin, and she smiled back.
A fun story.
An enjoyable story, Anthony. Right from the get go I thought that Bester would try and do harm to Stevens but never anticipated the clever way he carried it out. I liked the dual plot line of romancing Polly as well and how you 'killed two birds with one stone' - so to speak! That said, I think Allan may have his hands full with Polly who I anticipate will soon have him figured out and perhaps come up with an even more clever way to have him 'disappear'. An good read. Thx.
Had me hooked from the beginning. Engaging all the way to the end... Congrats on a story well told!
I really enjoyed this! I did notice though, that at the beginning, Polly's last name is written twice as 'Preston' instead of 'Pagnall' which threw me for a second.
I am wondering what happened to Moira. Entertaining story!
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