The Midnight Caller

5. The (M)anager

Luck, Charlotte decided, was not on her side. As per the instructions of the detective, she had, upon arriving at the shabby building that housed what remained of the crumbling business, immediately enquired for the manager.

The last remaining branch of Garcia & Co. was severely understaffed. There had been no security at the entrance, no cleaning staff throughout. Human presence was scarce, and the first man she had met upon arrival had been the embodiment of an employee gone rogue. Bad breath and chocolate rolls peeking from behind his shirt pocket did not make a great first impression, but Charlotte hardly had much of a choice.

"He will see you in a minute," the man had promised.

He did not see her in a minute. On the contrary, more than half an hour had passed since she had carefully perched on one of the rusted metallic benches, and there were no signs of the elusive manager or his untrustworthy employee.

As she sat there, waiting, her mind wandered. She couldn't help but worry she had been sent on fool's errand. Not that she doubted her employer's abilities- far from it, in fact. She had, by now, realised there was more to the ill-tempered detective than met the eye.

But the case had proved to be even more complex than the detective who had taken on the herculean task of solving it. How did one investigate a case from two decades ago? She had no answer to that. Moreover, he had already enunciated that there was practically no evidence in favour of the accused. Why, then, had he accepted the task? The question irked her to no end. What intrigued her more, however, were her employer's ways. At first, she had been convinced he was slightly, if not completely unhinged. But he had taken her by surprise with his remarkable deduction abilities. Not once had the detective failed in his reasoning. Charlotte thought his capabilities simply superhuman.

But above all, she worried how she would fare on her task, which she already seemed to be failing at. She wondered what she would find at the end of her expedition. If she found anything, she thought to herself, given the distinct absence of the person she had set out to find.

It had been at least an hour's wait when she decided to take matters into her own hand. Having had enough, she brushed past the man by the coffee machine (who had assured her he would bring her to the manager and was now staring at her, unbothered) and made her way into the dingy corridor.

It was after the third turn that the possibility that she was lost finally dawned on her. The outwardly small appearance of the place turned out to be quite deceptive, with the corridor stretching far into the distance, branching out like a decade-old fig tree.

But Charlotte was undeterred. Her pride would hardly allow her to retrace her steps and ask for the insincere man's help. Moreover, she was confident a little exploration would eventually take her to her destination.

Over fifteen minutes later, Charlotte found herself back at square one. Frustration bubbled in her chest at the familiar sight of the coffee machine in the waiting area. Worse still, the man whose help she had finally decided to accept was nowhere to be found. She felt a sudden urge to cry.

Why couldn't she do anything right? In all her years of recruitment, she had finally been assigned a job- a real job, and an opportunity to work with a real detective. Albeit, it sometimes seemed as though he was not quite right in the head- perhaps he wasn't, but it hadn't taken her long to recognise his genius. She had seen him in action with her own eyes- seen the cogs turn in his head and his eyes light up, his brows furrowed in thought over his sharp eyes. She had studied his strange habits and mannerisms, and his unusual thought process.