meanwhile, on the other side of the globe

The digital clock face reads 4:45 am. That means it's still yesterday afternoon in Canada. No wonder she's awake. A thirteen-hour time difference is a lot to get used to, and she only arrived yesterday. Or is today yesterday? It's all too much for her tired, buzzy brain to process.

She pushes the silk bedding off her sweaty legs and decides that she may as well get up. Even with the air conditioning blasting above her and a fan at the end of the bed to swirl the heavy, wet air around the room, it feels (and smells) like the inside of Berry's shoe in her tiny, agency-arranged condo.

When Allegra had arrived, rumpled and disoriented in the Changi airport yesterday-today, a veritable wall of humidity had greeted her. Her hair, usually sleek in its auburn twist, had immediately sprung from its bindings and created a halo of crinkled flyaways that gave her a slightly mad-scientist look, only heightened by the fact that she was dressed in her finest UK-made wool skirt suit which hadn't weathered the 20-hour flight well at all.

She'd left Toronto just as soon as Archie had called to confirm her new position. It hadn't been back in London, as she'd hoped, but beggars (or, more accurately in her case, seductresses in clear violation of their position of power) couldn't be choosers. She'd hastily packed her personal items into the suitcase that hadn't even had time to gather dust under the bed since its last trans-continental move.

When Berry's wife had called to let her know about his accident, she'd taken the opportunity to make one last half-hearted attempt at getting Henry back -- but in reality, the rigamarole of pet passports and vaccination documentation would only have delayed her. With Niall and his team of crack-detectives on the scent, she couldn't afford to lose any time. Once they'd figured her out, they could have gone straight to the Agency's worldwide executive board and had her dismissed as neatly as you like.

Given that, she felt it was best to simply disappear. She'd bequeathed Otto the lucrative Atrabax account, popped her office keycard on her desk, packed her case and hopped onto the first direct flight to her new, temporary home.

If Niall wanted to hunt her down, he wouldn't have an easy job of it. Not that she figured he would be bothered. He was far too self-involved to care what she got up to. That copywriter, Martin, and Niall's henchman David had a vindictive streak though -- enough that she'd be worried about them hounding her even after she'd left, but she'd taken care of them: an anonymous note tucked inside the little film canister she'd found taped to the back of David's desk drawer during one of her weekend root-arounds. Surmising, based on the odour that clung to Martin's moth-eaten clothes, that this was his secret stash, her note was anonymous but pointed:

You don't tell, I won't tell.

That would keep Martin quiet, and ensure that he kept David quiet too. If it didn't, she could always counter David's accusation with her own. Check the back of his desk drawer, she'd say to head office. Recreational drugs in the workplace? That's a sackable offence and discrediting, to say the least.

Speaking of which, there was also Otto's little flask that he kept hidden on the bottom shelf in the Accounts area. The English, being big drinkers themselves, would be bound to be more lenient if that were to come out — but Allegra didn't feel she needed to concern herself with Otto. He was Berry's friend and wouldn't be eager to put his buddy in a difficult position.

Overall, she felt she'd left things in a reasonably tidy little bow back in Toronto.

Out of bed now, Allegra prowls around her new condo in the mostly-dark. The sun is just starting to creep out from behind the busy cityscape that is her view. It really is a world-class skyline, she thinks to herself, and the Agency has outdone itself in finding her a flat on the 56th floor of a very exclusive building. Compared to the 8th-floor cement box in Toronto, this was a tiny piece of heaven -- if heaven's thermostat was dialled up to 'rainforest.'

Although she hardly needs it given the temperature, she clutches her Egyptian cotton Marks&Spencer robe around her. It no longer smells of home. But then, she no longer has an inclination to miss home all that much, things being well and truly in the past with Archie. She'd not be making any more pleading phone calls in the dark. Her time in Toronto had, possibly, cured her of her interest in married men.

For all the fun and carrying on, there was no end game in it.

As she looks around her upgraded living space, she wonders if it might be time to upgrade her personal life as well.

As the kettle comes to a boil over the gas range, she wakes up the voice-connected tablet that promises to deliver her morning news, take her grocery orders and act as a concierge to her every need.

"Find the closest animal shelter," she says bossily. "Let's hope they have a proper English Bulldog breeder in Asia."

***

"Christ on a bike!" he roars, soreheaded, from his place on the floor beside the bed where he must have fallen at the end of an evening of pure debauchery, Singapore style. He'd been absolutely scuttered when he came in.

The alarm, distressingly out of reach from his spot on the floor, has been shouting from its perch on the bedside table for at least 30 minutes.

When he first heard it, he'd shoved his ear underneath his arm and wished the clock dead before falling back into his muddled dream. The muffled sound had woven itself into dreams flitting through his desiccated brain: a siren, a dog mouthing off down a country lane, and finally, a ringing bell telling him he was late for the first day of school.

His eye cracked open. The floor again at close proximity. The smell of his beer breath and cigarette fug. The sudden, jarring remembrance that he isn't a schoolboy, but a full-grown man with a whopping hangover.

Niall Flannery, newly minted Executive Creative Director, Singapore office, is going to be late to work on his first day.

He puts his head back down on the rug and assures himself -- that's what they expect of a creative genius. Wouldn't do to show up on time like a fecking keener.

Eventually, he'd get up, if only to throw the alarm clock across the room. But it was going to take some time to pull himself together, the way he was feeling.

***

It's nearly 10:30 am by the time Niall swooshes through the sliding glass automatic doors of the Agency's Singapore offices. The only interview he'd had to do had been remote with some know-nothing arsehole in the UK. With his references from Dublin and the fact that he'd been the creative mind behind the Atrabax success (admittedly backwater, but big for Canada), he was a walk-in for the Singapore job.

This is his first look at the Agency's Asian outpost.

He has to admit, it's got a sense of glamour about it. Nothing like the painted brick and broken wood floors of the Toronto office. This is a stunning, world-class building—a tower of glass, metal and soaring hopes.

The Agency's logo glows snootily at him from behind reception.

"Well?" he says to the pretty woman sitting behind the desk. "How's the craic?"

She looks confused but not ruffled.

"Crack, sir?" she asks.

"No, I'm just saying how's about ye?"

She shakes her head and rolls her (downcast so he can't see) eyes just slightly. "You must be the new Irish ECD. They told me you'd be in by 9."

"Sure. That's me. I'm late, am I?" He smiles his most winning smile. If he wasn't so hungover, he thinks he'd probably ask this girl out for a drink later. Maybe he'll see how he feels by lunch.

"Yes," she replies. "You're late. Here's your pass card and your new phone -- IT has set up for you already. You'll want to see your office and meet your team, I imagine, but as it's already 10:30, I'll just take you straight to the top floor."

"Fantastic," Niall says, rubbing his hands. "Cafeteria up there, is it? Just about tea time."

The receptionist says nothing, but stands and walks him to the bank of shining elevators. She presses a floor number on a digital screen and says primly, "This will take you up. Good luck."

Niall steps into the pristine elevator and, as it glides upward into the Singapore sky, he has a big, yawning stretch. This'll be a dawdle, he thinks.

His ears pop with the changing air pressure.

In the mirrored glass, he practices the little half-bow he's seen people doing since he arrived. He flashes himself his most charming smile.

And, finally, finally, the doors sweep open to reveal the executive floor. Several uncomfortable looking people are standing in a circle in the middle of the cavernous space.

They all turn their faces at the ding of the elevator.

"Niall," says a dreadfully familiar voice. "So glad you've decided to join us. At long last."

Niall Flannery and Allegra Wood-Crosbie share a long look over the heads of the confused, uncomfortable, standing executive team.

This situation they now find themselves in, is, of course, nobody's fault but their own.

THE END