Every morning I checked the Director’s calendar to ensure there were no meeting clashes, no opportunity for her polished façade to slip. Once I’d made the mistake of booking two meetings without leaving ten minutes between them, thus forcing her to run across the sprawling campus. She arrived late for her meeting with the Provost, her designer clothes rumpled, pale calves swelling. Lesser assistants would have been fired and I thanked my lucky stars she’d been so forgiving of me. I knew better than most this was not always the case. I colour-coded the meetings after that, checking and re-checking them.

On this day, the Director was required to attend a planning committee to talk about how the university could provide support for students with disabilities. It was important work and could benefit many people, like so many of the programs she championed. I sent the agenda documents to the printer, bound them and placed them neatly on her desk, then took a bundle of outgoing paperwork and carried it across the office to the filing room in the back.

There, I sorted the papers alphabetically and slotted them into the shelving unit. It was difficult to find space between the letters S and T because that was where I had discovered the body of a recently deceased academic. A delicate, greying hand with manicured pink nails poked out neatly between the blue and white manila folders.

Well, wasn’t that just great. Archiving old documents to make space in the filing cabinet was time-consuming and intolerably dull. I hesitated, holding a file labelled Social Justice Committee. Tentatively, I pushed at the body and found I could make just enough space to wedge the folder between her hair and the filing system wall. Most of the dead bodies in this place were quite fresh but this one had been here for a while and it was becoming stiff and difficult to manipulate. It was a tight fit but I managed to shove the file into place by bending back the woman’s left ear.

With disgust, I noticed a smear of blood on the back of my hand. I crossed my arms tightly as I hurried to the ladies’ toilets, hoping there were no marks on my clothes. I had learned to keep a spare shirt in the back of my car, just in case.

On Tuesday the Director was scheduled to speak at a luncheon in honour of International Women’s Day and wouldn’t be back in the office until the afternoon. I used the time to meet with my colleague, Renee, to talk about an upcoming conference. Renee was keen to include Indigenous perspectives in the program, with a focus on de-colonising the curriculum. “We need to encourage Aboriginal academics to share their teaching methodologies,” she said, while I took meticulous notes. “But don’t ask Kerry to help,” she rolled her eyes, “she never does any work.” Do not include Kerry, I scrawled into the margin of my notepad.

Renee had only been at the university for about year but in that time she’d become a favourite of the Director. Even so, the Director had made a few sneaky comments about her “being in desperate need of a makeover.” When the Director made a joke, I felt it was best to laugh.

Later that afternoon the Director called me into her office. She stood close enough that I could smell the coffee on her breath – skinny latte, no sugar. In a quiet voice, she told me to cancel all of Kerry’s meetings. It seemed she just wasn’t up to the job. Kerry kept a picture frame on her desk of her young daughter, close in age to my own little boy. I remembered our conversations, drinking tea in the kitchen and chatting about how lucky we were to work for an organisation that understood the pressures for working mothers, how grateful we were that our boss declared herself a feminist.

The Director dismissed me with a friendly wink. At my desk, I removed the meetings from the multi-coloured calendar, pushing my feelings down, burying them. I cancelled my Thursday lunch date with Kerry.

In the filing room, a dead man in brown slacks was lying spread-legged across the floor, blocking the path to the photocopier. I nearly tripped over him with my arms full of paperwork. Irritated, I pushed him out of the way with one foot, wondering if I should submit this as a hazard into the S.R.S (Safety Recording System). I decided against it, realising I might be required to complete an incident report, which would lead to an investigation, and I’d probably have to design and put up posters warning people about the risks of tripping and falling over in the workplace.

I tried to roll the dead man closer to the wall, pressing the heel of my shoe into his back, but a pile of archiving boxes was stacked in the way and they wobbled precariously when he bumped against them, his head lolling from his shoulders in a morose shrug as if to say, “Whatever.” Another job that might have to wait until Friday.

On Wednesday, the office held a morning tea in honour of R U OK Day. The Director had baked bright yellow cookies with cheerful smiley-faces iced onto them, using low-carb flour and stevia sweeteners so that they were guilt-free. Staff milled around in the lunchroom, chatting. I had printed out and stapled a set of colourful brochures with detailed information about the importance of mental health in the workplace and a list of 1800 numbers that you could call in case you were feeling suicidal.

In the corner, Kerry sat alone with a cup of tea balanced on her lap, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. I took the vacant seat beside her. “Are you OK?”

Kerry didn’t look up but she glanced at the crowd eating biscuits in the kitchen. Her hands shook slightly. “Don’t you ever notice… the smell?” she whispered.

I scanned the room. Nobody was paying us attention. “I mean, of course I do,” I shrugged, “but what can we do? I’m a single mum and I need this job. Besides, the Director is good to me.”

A pair of legs protruded from behind the dishwasher, interrupting the flow of staff around the kitchen bench. Female legs, clad in black circulation-support stockings and sensible orthopaedic shoes, with the hem of a floral skirt riding dangerously high on solid thighs and exposing a scoop of underwear. Black varicose veins showed through the torn black stockings, tracing the pale skin like spiderwebs, the legs frozen in a deeply unflattering pose of rigor mortis.

I stepped over the legs on my way through the kitchen and tossed my biodegradable plate into the composting bin. I had to negotiate awkwardly with other people trying to get past in such a small space, with everyone trying to be polite and maintain social distance. I was grateful I could leave this mess for the overnight cleaners.

On Thursday, everything fell apart. I came in at nine a.m. as always, switched on my laptop, and brought the Director’s coffee to her desk. But the Director was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Renee was sitting in the black leather swivel chair, her eye makeup smudged like a tragic clown. “Oh!” she wailed. “Kerry, that vindictive bitch! She’s put in a complaint to the Integrity and Standards Unit. The Director’s been suspended!”

I found it difficult to breathe. I sat in one of the visitor chairs and placed the coffee on the table, forgetting to use a coaster. Complaints had been made in the past, of course they had – in such a large and complex organisation you are bound to get a few personality clashes. But a suspension, especially at this level, was practically unheard of. Foul play? Some other executive making a strategic move for the Director’s job?

Renee gathered herself, wiping away tears and mascara with a crumpled tissue. “Okay, listen. We’re bound by confidentiality. You can’t speak to anyone about this. Not anyone, okay? If anyone asks, just say the Director is taking some leave.”

Several high-level meetings were scheduled for the late morning to discuss LGBTQI+ Allyship training for staff, and the Director was due to collect an award for Excellence in Staff Wellbeing in the afternoon. I’d have to make up a believable story. Perhaps we could say somebody had died?

Renee put a hand on my shoulder. “The Director is lucky to have such loyal friends.”

That day, the phone rang off the hook. I told callers the Director was taking leave due to a sudden death in the family. With each repetition the lie became easier to say. Even so, I felt uneasy and made several errors responding to emails. In a moment of panic I realised I’d hit “Reply All” and informed the entire Faculty of Humanities what I was having for lunch. I told myself I must be imagining the strange way Renee was looking at me, her dark eyes lingering a bit longer than they should. I didn’t want to admit it but it was becoming difficult to ignore the smell.

By Friday, the whole office had heard about the Director’s unfortunate loss and little gifts and notes piled up on her desk. I met with Renee under the guise of discussing the upcoming conference.

“So of course, she’s going to sue them. It’s disgusting,” said Renee. “But – and this is just between us – she’s been offered a role at another university. Better than this one. Great pay, too.”

After the meeting I went into the Director’s office to collect the gifts and notes. Searching for a box to put them in, I swung open the door to the storage closet. The Director’s graduation regalia, a rich burgundy satin, hung on a velvet coat hanger, wrapped in protective plastic. Beside the gown, swinging gently back and forth, hung Kerry’s body. Her glasses were missing and her blank eyes stared out from their sockets like cold, grey marbles.

I screamed, dropping the gifts. A packet of Belgian chocolate balls burst open and rolled all over the carpet, some disappearing beneath the desk. On the floor beneath Kerry’s swinging corpse lay a mess of various bones, unmistakeably human, in various stages of decomposition. The stench of rot burned like acid in my throat.

Poor Kerry. I knelt to collect the chocolates, leaving the closet door open. But what could I have done? I need this job. And the Director is good to me.

Oh God, the smell!

Behind me, I heard Renee grunt. “Ugh, Kerry. She was always playing the victim.”

I barely felt the knife slide between my shoulder blades. I was thrust forward, knocking Kerry’s body from the hanger, where she crumpled in a heap, the bones splintering beneath her. Hands splayed desperately, I landed face-down on the top of the pile. There I lay, bleeding to death, unable to scream or cry out – the university required that everything remain confidential, of course.

Inches from my face sat a discarded pair of the Director’s designer heels. I had always thought they looked so beautiful and admired her for being able to walk in them despite the way they left her toes mangled and deformed.

Renee didn’t bother to close the door properly. As the pool of blood beneath me congealed, I watched her through the gap in the door. She was wiping her hands down her little black dress as she walked away.

I watched Renee sit down in front of my computer. She opened the calendar and started deleting meetings. Ping! Gone.