Younger Read online

  “No problem. And I’m glad you came for a drink instead of yelling for a policeman.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, but she was smiling. “It’s been nice. I don’t know many people here. Hardly anyone, in fact.”

  “Well, if you’d like, we could get together for a film and dinner. I know I’m not exactly date material for you, so I promise it would be nothing like that. Nick’s with me for the next couple of weeks, but the Saturday after he goes back to his mum would be fine.”

  Her brain screeched, “Say no!” but the words off her lips were, “I’d like that, David. Thank you.” She wrote her new iPhone number on the back of a Barton Pharmaceuticals card, turning away as she did it so he wouldn’t see her hand tremble. “It’s best to call or text me on this number.”

  “Will do. Can I walk you to the Tube?”

  She shook her head as she got to her feet. “Thanks, no. Call me uptight, but I really don’t like people from work knowing my business.”

  He laughed ruefully. “You like secrets? You know, you may be like Anna in more ways than looks.”

  Her look of puzzlement wasn’t wholly feigned. Then she chirped a bright “See you” and headed for the door. All the way to the Underground, she refused to think about what he’d meant by that remark.

  Anna spent the next few days fretting over all of her recent decisions. Had it been a mistake to tell Barton she’d stay? Was she nuts, agreeing to see David again? As she tended to do more and more lately, she pushed aside her doubts and concentrated on the job at hand.

  She was genuinely enjoying working on Madame X and developing a marketing plan for YOUNGER. She no longer deemed Chas’s eagerness annoying and now found Becca’s solemn frumpiness and dedication to hard work comforting. Their little team made genuine progress that week. Thursday, Becca delivered her revised UK press releases and said almost sassily, “I did what I could to Brit things up. Hope you like them.”

  “Thanks. Have a minute to talk?”

  Becca nodded and sat down.

  “I worry that some of the US copy might be a bit too sexy for older British women. Do you know what I mean?”

  Becca thought it over, finally saying, “Well, I do think British women don’t want a whole new you and all that, just to look a bit better.”

  “And younger, yes? Younger is always better, right?”

  “Is it? My mum’s fifty-five, and when I told her I could get her Madame X products to try, she laughed and said, ‘I am who I am. Some of us are content with that, young lady!’ She’s a bit of a straight talker, my mum. But I do think British women aren’t as looks obsessed.”

  “I see. But what we’re selling is still that younger is better, isn’t it?”

  “Now you sound like Olga.”

  “Olga?”

  “Oh, just someone who was here last year.” Becca looked suddenly uncomfortable. “She had this office.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She worked on an advanced retinol anti-aging line that was in development. And she hinted that something incredibly important was coming up. She was over-the-top about everything, so once the Coscom acquisition was announced, I figured she’d known about Madame X. She was always saying things like, ‘What if you could decide every day how young you wanted to be?’ Which isn’t a bad tagline for Madame X, I suppose.”

  “Except it would be promising a lot more than poor Madame X could deliver. Is she British, this Olga?”

  “Oh, no, Olga Novrosky. Russian. She worked on a single account, like you. Only hers was the retinol.”

  “And she left after the acquisition?”

  “Before the acquisition.” Now Becca looked downright miserable. “She didn’t exactly leave, though, Tanya. She—” She blew out a puff of air.

  “She . . . ?” Anna prompted.

  “She died.”

  “She what?”

  “Died. She was acting oddly. Jumpy and nervous. Kind of obsessive. She accused Chas of listening in on her calls, but his line didn’t even connect to hers. It’s the way it is now: you need to go to intercom and ring through. She was rushing off to Mr. Barton’s office all the time, and I could see he was trying to avoid her.” She shrugged. “Obviously, he has more important things to do than deal with a copywriter’s personal problems or whatever.”

  “So she was let go?”

  Becca shook her head. “No. She fell or jumped under a train at the Oxford Circus Tube station one day after work. You know, at rush hour, one needs to be careful not to go too close to—” She blinked. “I still feel as if I’d let her down in some way. She wasn’t an especially likable person, but I feel terrible that she’d do something like that!”

  “How awful! When did this happen?”

  “Last winter, just before the acquisition. I guess Mr. Barton decided to scrap that retinol line afterward because he didn’t replace her and the line just went away. Then, after the launch in New York, he told us about your joining us. ‘Top drawer,’ he said, which is one of his highest compliments.” She sighed. “I wish I’d done something to help her.”

  Anna aimed for a consoling smile. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Becca. We can’t save everyone. She could have just fallen, and you weren’t close. Anyhow, give the campaign some more thought and we’ll touch base again Monday.”

  “Will do. And, thank you, Tanya. It’s very generous of you to give me more responsibility.”

  “It’s nothing. You’ll be here long after I’ve gone.” Good thing I’m not superstitious, she thought as Becca left. I could be tempting fate saying something like that.

  As soon as the door closed, Anna took out her iPhone and typed “Olga Novrosky” on its memo pad. She ignored the inclination to run to Pierre Barton demanding, “Why didn’t you tell me about Olga?” Instead, since it was past five, she grabbed her things and left.

  She ran down the steps of the Oxford Circus Underground station and swiped her Oyster card at the turnstile; once on the platform, she stood back by the wall, far from the edge and the drop to the tracks. When a standing-room-only car arrived, she slipped on and held tightly to the pole as she was borne through the dark tunnels.

  She didn’t go straight home. Instead she headed to a café with free Wi-Fi and took out her iPhone. She connected to the café’s Wi-Fi and then switched to the untraceable Virtual Privacy Network (VPN) connection Rob, whom she now considered her personal security expert, had recommended if she went online with her own electronics.

  Then she Googled “Olga Novrosky.” News reports were perfunctory. Olga Novrosky, twenty-three, a Russian national who had recently moved to London, died after falling or jumping in front of a train as it entered Oxford Circus station. A coroner’s hearing was scheduled, blah, blah, blah.

  The only paper that had anything more was one of the down-market tabloids. On half a page, eight pages in, it strayed from the official line, asking “How Did Olga Die?”

  She read:

  A mysterious young Russian woman, recently arrived in London, died when she plunged into the path of an incoming train at Oxford Circus Underground station yesterday at approximately 6:00 p.m. Witnesses said the woman, Olga Novrosky, had pushed ahead of those waiting in front on the crowded platform just as the train was on its approach. “Then she just shot forward and was gone,” said a witness.

  Novrosky had been employed at nearby Barton Pharmaceuticals for two months and was on her way home from work.

  “It was too crowded to tell much from the CCTV footage,” said a police source. “We see her arrive and move through the crowd. Several people move forward behind her, but that’s to be expected of anyone waiting to board a rush-hour train. Further investigation will depend upon the coroner’s verdict.”

  Police have thus far been unable to trace friends or family. Service on the Victoria line was halted for two hours due to
the incident.

  Swell, Anna thought, the Victoria line. Did Olga usually take it to Piccadilly and change, as she herself did, to get to Gloucester Road? Had Olga had a handy “aunt” in South Kensington? The journalist’s name was Nelson Dwyer. She checked the time. Past six-thirty, but newsmen probably worked longer hours than beauty editors did. She might as well see what she could learn, especially why he’d used the word mysterious. An online search supplied the number, then she dug out one of her new cell phones to call.

  She was nonplussed by how easy it was. Dwyer sounded pleased to speak to Lisa Jones, an American reporter investigating press coverage of unexplained violent deaths in the post-terror-attack world.

  “See, none of these hacks bothered to do anything but take the police statement. Me, I spoke to witnesses at the scene. One woman was hanging around with that ‘I-want-to-be-interviewed’ look on her grill, so I was happy to oblige. She said this Olga had barreled past her on the stairs down to the trains, looking behind her as if someone was chasing her.”

  “Worried about being late, maybe,” Anna suggested.

  “Yeah, well, you see, luv, that might fit with the slipped-and-fell theory, but no one’s in that big a rush if what they plan to do is off themselves. You know what I’m saying? I mean, there’s always another train, ain’t there? Also, the way she fell was a bit queer. Fractures on both wrists. Means she put her arms out to try to stop or break her fall. Not common suicidal behavior. Yeah, I know, means nothing. But after that bit you read was printed, this Ukrainian bird got in touch. Said she’d met Olga a couple nights before in a pub off Queensway where the Russkies gather; Olga was knocking back the tattie wine—vodka, luv—and told her she needed to scarper out of England real soon because of a bad situation. Said Olga from the Volga seemed scared—even terrified.”

  “And the coroner’s verdict?”

  “It would have been death by misadventure, I think—recognizing the possibility of a big fat shove—but her boss testified, told the coroner’s jury how strangely Olga had been acting lately. So it came in as a suicide. Case closed. That was the end of it as far as my editor was concerned.”

  “Her boss?” She held some paper next to the mouthpiece and audibly leafed through it in a notebooky way. “Would that be Pierre Barton?”

  “Nah, that’s not the name. It was . . . Manning? Martin? Nope. Madden. That’s it, Clive Madden.”

  August 4

  Email sent as a blind copy to Anna’s “Friends” list:

  Hey, sorry I’ve been out of touch, but I’ve been on the move again! I came and went from London, too expensive in the long run for a thrifty traveler like me. Or almost anyone! Yeah, should have done the big European jaunt when I was young and less fussy about bathrooms down the hall.

  So I headed to Belgium. And it’s not at all boring. How did it get that reputation? Bruges was breathtaking. Brussels was all right, but hard for me to warm to, so I went to Antwerp and am loving it. Most Flemish speak excellent English, and the city’s very cosmopolitan, with not just all the diamonds but also designers like Ann Demeulemeester and Dries Van Noten making great clothes featuring clever bias cutting and asymmetric lines. Even the nondesigner knockoffs at half the price are fabulous creations!

  I miss you all but have to say I’m having the time of my life. Mwah!

  A

  Thursday, August 4

  I’ve been giving more thought to YOUNGER, and now that I do “seem young,” I don’t think it matters at all other than for your Formula One agents. Your forty- and fiftysomething women, while certainly looking much more youthful, will never truly look twenty-five again, so why act as if they can?

  In case my imposture wasn’t strictly for Mr. Kelm’s research, I must, in all honesty say, it wasn’t 100 percent necessary. Young people are not this, that, and the other. A twenty-seven-year-old woman dressing like Anna used to and wearing Anna’s old makeup might appear a bit staid but she would never be mistaken for a dowager. Look at Becca. Not every girl on the street is in stilettos or even UGGs. Not everyone under forty, or even thirty, hangs out in clubs. Plenty are shy, subdued, conservative, eccentric.

  Tanya is a far cry from the YOUNGER poster girl. The YOUNGER woman doesn’t want to be a hot young babe. She doesn’t want to be someone else; as our tagline states, she wants to be herself but younger. And since she can’t be younger, she’s content to look younger. Most women my age don’t feel middle-aged or older. They feel ageless. It’s society that labels them. They’d like to have others see them as they themselves do in their mind’s eye. And they want others—especially potential employers—not to be able to take one look before pigeonholing them by age. It’s that simple.

  Chapter 14

  The next day was Friday, and Anna supposedly had the morning off for her “doctor’s” visit, as she would on a monthly basis. Wearing no makeup, she was conveyed by Aleksei, in his habitual tomb-like silence, to the huge Strand Palace Hotel, where Marianne was waiting in an anonymous room. The nurse took photographs, then lightly scraped a scalpel along the skin of Anna’s cheek and neck, using the scrapings to prepare two slides, which she put in a sealable bag with a cool pack for the laboratory.

  Then Marianne applied a light non-YOUNGER moisturizer and Anna put on makeup. “Good to see you again, Lisa” was the only phrase to escape Marianne’s lips before “See you next month.” Downstairs, Aleksei waited at the curb. When she got in the back, she noticed a bag filled with her next four-week supply of YOUNGER products on the back seat. She was at her desk by ten o’clock.

  Becca had a doctor’s appointment at lunchtime, most certainly a genuine one in her case, presenting the perfect chance for Anna to pick Chas’s brain. Over moo shu pork and kung pao chicken, she was relieved to hear he had no interest in Becca’s job. He was working on a novel set in the ad world, and he considered his job at BarPharm a “pretty stress-free” research opportunity.

  “What about when that Olga woman died, though?” she prodded. “That must have been stressful.”

  “Bad news, yeah. Stressful? Not really,” he said with the insouciance of the genuinely young. “Olga never had much to do with me. Or with Becca, for that matter. She spent a lot of her time holed up in her office or in with Pierre. Uh, Mr. Barton.”

  “Pierre will do.” She smiled. “She didn’t report to this whatsisname, Mr. Madden?”

  “Clive?” he laughed. “No way! We called Clive ‘Mr. Yes, Your Majesty.’ He’s a marketing expert, but he let Pierre act like everything was his own idea. Now, it’s really Pierre and you, isn’t it? Hugh’s the first person to admit he’s still really just sales VP. Clive’s a great guy, but too leery of making the wrong move. Maybe because he really needs the job. Sick kid, some kind of genetic disorder.”

  “Oh, that’s awful. Is that all he has, the one child?”

  “Nah, that’s his son and he’s got a girl who’s older. Small children. And I heard he foots the bill for a private-care home for a mother with Alzheimer’s, too. If I were him, I guess I’d worry about finding myself on the street, too.”

  “I thought Olga was working with Clive on a makeup line like Madame X that got dropped after the Coscom acquisition.” She hoped he wouldn’t ask who’d told her that since she had just made it up.

  He didn’t, but he had nothing to offer, either. “Above my pay grade, ma’am.” He grinned cheerfully. “That was great moo shu. First time I’ve eaten here. Anyhow, as soon as Olga died, whatever she did stopped being done, as far as I know. She didn’t seem to be working hard on the retinol thingy. Or on friendliness. She barely acknowledged my existence.”

  “You must not have been thrilled when you heard I was coming.”

  “Well, we didn’t know much, did we? But no worries, Tanya. To speak ill of the dead for a sec, she was a prize bitch. You treat us with respect, give us responsibility, and even ask the lowl
y office boy to join you for Chinese. Who could ask for more?”

  “Thanks, Chas, that means a lot. And lunch is on me.” When he weakly protested, she interrupted. “I say, ‘On me,’ but I mean this one’s on Madame X.”

  The night before, something had suddenly struck her, and she’d called the journalist Dwyer again to ask about the CCTV tapes from the platform the day Olga died. Did he have copies? “Negative, I’m afraid. You’ll need to go to the rozzers for that. But I might have some stills from the tapes. That help you?”

  She couldn’t let this go without seeing them, nor could she go to the police, so she asked him to take a look. “I’ll call after lunch tomorrow and see if you found them.”

  Now, telling Chas she had a few things to pick up before going back to the office, she walked him back, then kept going, ducking into a tobacco shop to buy a phone card and ask where she could find a pay phone. She called Dwyer and arranged to meet him at a pub in Soho at seven.

  She was uneasy. Something strange was going on, and she feared she’d waded into a mess that could be dangerous, even deadly. Still, she also felt exhilarated. Shuffling Madame X copy she’d already written once for the US launch, guiding Chas and Becca, and scribbling increasingly mediocre fiction for her diary and emails just wasn’t enough. And now that she was growing more certain she was a pawn in someone’s game, she was both pissed off and determined to figure out who was moving the chess pieces.

  After work, she went to the big Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus and picked up one of the books Rob had recommended on computer security. Then she moved on to Tottenham Court Road to a discount electronics shop, where she bought a small, inexpensive laptop, some flash drives, and universal electrical adapters. Then she picked up the mousiest light brown hair color she could find. She hoped she would never need any of these things, but for only a few hundred pounds’ cash outlay, she now had whatever might be required should she suddenly need to disappear.