She placed her hand on the door with caution, half expecting it to swing outwards and knock her down the stairs to the bottom. Part of the original building, the small dog-legged room hugged its roots as an anteroom to an office, turning its back on the smart brick structure which sprung up at its rear in the 1980s. The carpenter who turned it into a stockroom made a fantastic job of fitting bespoke floor to ceiling shelving, assuming it would open from its original side. But the architects ordered that doorway closed and opened one onto the stairs, giving it the tiniest of landings. They didn’t think to tell the carpenter and his handiwork didn’t factor in a door which opened inwards. Rough edges betrayed his temper as he carved a hole in the shelving unit to allow only slender bodies to
