Secrets to a Happy Ending

Chapter 25

The office was large, and deceiving from the look of the door outside. There was not a window in the room, the walls were thick and padded. As Susannah walked in, she ran her hand across the wall by the door in front of the desk.

"It's like flocked wallpaper?"

Lydia put her hand up to the wall, it was hard to make out what the material was that was covering it.

They walked behind the desk looking down; it was an aged desk, with nothing on the top but a calendar. Lydia shined her torch over it at the edge of the desk she saw the edge of another table. She carried on shining it over towards where the table was, and there was a computer sitting on the top of it.

"There is a computer there, I wonder what's on it?" She asked.

"Shine the torch around the office more so we can get a better view."

"I got a better idea, give me your Jacket."

"What do you want my jacket for?" Susannah asked.

"Please give me your jacket."

Susanna removed her Jacket and handed it to Lydia. Lydia shone the torch on the wall by the door, she found the light switch and turned the light on, shut the door and laid the Jacket at the bottom.

"So as not to let any light out." She said,

"Good plan."

After a moment of adjusting to the light they looked around the room, the wall was covered in a thick honeycomb like material.

"Interesting taste in decoration." Susannah suggested.

"Soundproofing."

"Sorry?"

"That's sound proofing on the walls, so that others cannot hear sound coming out of the room, I've seen it in music studios."

"Why would an office want soundproofing?"

"I have no idea."

Susannah turned and found there was a filing cabinet in the far corner of the room, she walked over and tried the drawer it was locked.

"I don't think a hair pin is going to help us unlock that."

Lydia opened some drawers in the desk looking to see if she could find a key for it. There was a small slide out panel at the top, which she pulled out, inside were some paper clips, drawing pins and a small shiny silver key. She picked it up and showed it to Susannah.

"No one thinks to put filing cabinet keys with the rest of them."

Susannah took the key, and unlocked the filing cabinet and opened the top drawer. Lydia turned on the computer to see if she could find anything on there of interest.

"There might be something about Trixie in here." Susannah suggested.

The computer.screen began to glow, with a welcome sign. Lydia smiled to herself, there was no mention of a password. She opened the computer and looked at the desktop. There were several different folders, Minutes of meetings, annual accounts, taxes, and a folder entitled PT. She opened it and inside there was an excel sheet and some pdf documents.

"Nothing about Trixie here, but Lydia look at this, there are a lot of files about people, names I don't recognise."

Lydia opened the PTC pdf document and quickly scanned it for information, she grabbed her phone and took a picture of the screen. Susannah walked over to where Lydia was with some of the folder she had just removed from the filing cabinet.

"Do you suppose these are people who used to live here, perhaps?"

Lydia turned and looked at one of the folders with the name entitled Emerson Johnson, she opened it inside there was a picture and an application form. Her eyes grew wide, and she picked up her phone and opened her email.

"What is it?" Susannah asked.

"I'm not sure yet maybe the final piece that I need to find out about all of this?"

"But what about Trixie?"

Lydia looked at her phone for a moment and sat down in shock.

"Oh my god, my god I had no idea."

"What is it?"

"I have to phone someone."

"Lydia, you're not making much sense of what's going on."

Lydia dialled a number on her mobile, she let it ring for a minute, she shook her hands with impatience.

"Ben, it's me, look I need you to call a town meeting right now at the village hall...... .yes you do know about them Ben just do it. Have all the villagers there, it must be all of them waiting please it's very important. I will meet you there in 45 minutes. I cannot explain right now."

She put the phone down and ran over to the filing cabinet where she pulled out more of the files. She walked back and shut down the computer, leaving the office just as it had been arranged.

"We have to get out of here now Susannah."

"But what about Trixie!"

"There is no time to explain now."

"But why are we running, we're here already?"

Lydia grabbed Susannah as they quietly shut the office door and slipped back out of the window running off into the darkness, just as a car approached the village hall.