To Catch a Creeper (13 page)

‘What?’

‘Where you went, last night?’

‘Just a restaurant.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

‘Trop…’ I almost say it, before I catch myself. Last thing I want is her to discover my bolthole. She’s muscled in on Rosa’s desk after all.

‘Tropadero?’

‘I mean Trocadero, lots of wine bars and clubs round the Trocadero.’

‘Like a pub crawl?’

‘Yeah. Kind of.’

It’s the most Vivien’s spoken to me all month.

‘I remember when I was pub crawling around Oxford during rag week.’ Honour’s on the starting block.

‘All the other students on my course…’

And she’s off.

Vivien turns her attention back to Honour who’s gone into a trance-like state as she relays story after story about her ‘uni days’, while I just stick my earphones on and click into iTunes. Joff, whose tech knowledge goes beyond cleaning telephones, sorted it out for me. He’s been quite useful lately, because there’s been quite a few occasions when I’ve pressed the wrong key or opened too many programs, things have frozen and I’ve lost stuff. I suppose anyone under twenty is born knowing computers from the cradle.

‘Where did you say you went to uni, Cathy?’

I realise she’s speaking to me but I pretend I’m concentrating on the music by waggling my head a bit and humming out of tune. And then I do what I always do when people talk about school and college and things I’d rather block.

I leave the room.

***

‘Seen Vivien this morning?’ Alice catches me as I’m slinking towards the water dispenser. ‘Filthy mood.’

‘Seemed fine just now.’ I fill up a cone. ‘She’s actually been quite chatty.’

‘Well I’d be careful, if I were you. Apparently Turks spent the night out last night. She wants to know where, he refuses to tell her. She keeps grilling all the people he might have gone with.’

‘I thought it was just casual?’

‘Not anymore. Vivien thinks he’s made some sort of commitment to her and then he goes off without a word, wouldn’t answer the phone all night. Mobile switched off. Highly suspicious. Oops, talk of the devil.’ She flattens herself against the wall.

I glance behind me. Turks is marching down the corridor, looking unusually flustered.

‘Cathy, you’ll do.’

He follows me into the office where Gurlet has now appeared. He’s murmuring something in Vivien’s ear while Honour is locked into her brochure world. ‘Just print out some figures on the Pritchard campaign, I’ve a client waiting.’

I look blankly at him. Gurlet gives me a kind of sneer.

‘It’s on the internet,’ Turks explains in a slow voice. ‘Just open Explorer. I’ll give you the address and pass code.’

‘OK.’ I think I can handle that. I sit down at my desk, turn to my screen then quietly gasp.

Written in bold letters right across it, flashing red and yellow and black are some letters, which read… Hang on. I screw my eyes and try and decipher. Looks like, the word, BITCH.

It’s in mirror writing. No…wait a minute…not mirror.I turn my head at an angle to see better, until I catch Turks glancing across at me as if I’ve gone mad. The whole screen is…upside down!

I try and work the mouse, but it’s going the wrong way. I move it left, it goes right. I drag it up, it goes down. Vivien’s standing between Turks and Honour, who’s now
regaling Turks with tales of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. Apparently she organised it or something.

‘Found those figures yet, Cathy, Cath Cath?’ He turns to me, sounding a mite impatient.

‘Just doing it.’

‘You OK?’ Honour stops her monologue a moment to come over to stand by my shoulder. She jerks her head back and then looks at me. ‘But it’s…’

‘S-s-something’s wrong with my machine.’

‘Haven’t you mastered it yet?’ Turks is almost scowling. ‘I thought Rosa said you were really coming along with computers?’

‘I am. I have been,’ I bluster, as I try manoeuvring the mouse again, but it’s practically impossible to control. Like patting your head and rubbing your tummy only fifty times harder.

Turks heads towards me but is stopped by Honour stepping forward.

‘Do you want
me
to get the figures for you, Turks?’ She gives a metaphorical sniff up his backside.

‘Oh yes…well…if you can.’

A few taps on her keyboard and the figures are flying off the printer. ‘There you go.’ She hands it to him smartly and again pushes her glasses back onto her nose with her middle finger.

‘Look, get the tecchies in if you’re having trouble, Cath. Or maybe Viv could help you. She’s rather a whiz on mostof our programs, aren’t you, Vivien, Viv Viv?’

‘I do my best,’ she says, coyly.

‘Oh, and another thing, Cathy,’ he asks just before he leaves the room, the sheaf of papers Honour printed out under his arm, ‘RNW’s presentation, is it ready?’

‘As ready as it’ll ever be.’ My head slumps into my neck.

‘Thought so.’ He throws me a wink and heads back to his office.

‘What’s going on?’ Now it’s Vivien’s turn to peer over my shoulder.

Honour returns to my desk and manages, thank God, to manoeuvre the mouse enough to delete the BITCH message. But the screen’s still upside down.

‘The whole screen’s turned upside down!’ Vivien exclaims.

‘I realise that,’ I say stiffly.

‘You must have done something.’ Honour tuts. ‘Here, let me see if I can…’ She brushes one of the keys on the left and one of the F keys and the next minute everything’s rotated 180 degrees. ‘There you go,’ she says and heads back to her desk.

‘Best, maybe, if you don’t touch anything you don’t understand, Cathy, Cath Cath,’ Vivienswaps a smile with Honour.

‘Yeah, like the PC,’ Honour chuckles.

I scowl at them both.

You know I’m all for a laugh, bit of office banter, but today I’m fast losing my sense of humour.

***

Mid-afternoon and I’m peering over the top of
Advertisers World
scrutinising goody-goody teacher’s pet Honour across the room head down, tapping away on her keyboard.

Could it have been her that typed the word BITCH? Rushing to intercept Turks so that he wouldn’t realise what had gone on. Because instead of taking over and doing it herself, she could just as easily have helped me out so I could give him the apple…or rather list. Plus if she knew how to fix the machine, could it have been because
she
had tampered with it in the first place? She’s never been horrible to my face or anything, but a clever person like her might be far less obvious than someone else. So then what would
be her motive? I wrack my brains but the only thing I can come up with is that I’ve passed over to her all my horrible hotel descriptions and I quipped about her name once, although she’s obviously ambitious and she just might be after my job. But is that enough to be so spiteful?

Or perhaps it was Vicious Viv? After all, she made it pretty clear from day one that she didn’t like me, which wasn’t helped by my eating rat comment and boasting about Turks and his throbbing temple? Does she really suspect I’m seeing him? He’s almost a decade my junior, wealthy, single, sexy, great catch for many, and she thinks little old me is worthy of landing him? Flattering, but hard to believe.

And then again, Girly Gurlet was in the room as well. Could he have meddled with my computer, in revenge for me criticising his bread presentation? Still holding a grudge?

Questions drift around my head as I make my way to the toilets and on the way I see them. Alice laughing with Lewis.

And something about it. The closeness. The way they’re holding their heads together and their eyes are darting all around. It’s very subtle, but something doesn’t add up. I thought they were sworn enemies, and yet… Thing is Alice has been so lovely to me ever since I came here, defending me against the rest of the employees. But then again she had been in the room with the rest of them when they played that silly April Fool’s joke on me. Didn’t forewarn me. On the other hand, like Rosa said, it was an initiation ceremony and if she wasn’t there, it could have been interpreted as a snub. Oh God! Am I destined to have no friends in the firm? Like Turks, no-one that I can truly trust?

Chapter 12

‘Cathy, a word.’ Tuesday morning, five days after the bitch incident and Turks beckons me into his office. He sits there, feet up on desk, close-cropped beard gleaming in the sunlight. ‘This RNW account. We’ve just had a call from one of our inside contacts over there. There’s another company that’s got wind of the whole thing and if we’re going to have a fair crack of the whip, we’ll need to move in early. Catch the worm as it were.’

‘But…whaddledat…’ My tongue refuses to form words yet alone sentences.

‘You can handle this, can’t you? Because I’ve spoken to Viv and she told me she wasn’t quite there yet, but with a little tweaking…’

‘No, no. I can handle it. You bet I can handle it.’

‘Good. I know you, Cathy, such a perfectionist. I’m sure you’re finalising each tiny detail. Right, so I’ll meet you in the office and take you down there tomorrow. Ten a.m. sharp.’

***

Tomorrow ten a.m. sharp.

Tomorrow ten a.m. sharp.

Tomorrow ten a.m. sharp.

The words resound in my head as I ride back on the bus and it carries on even when I’ve gotten out, all the way down the Broadway, all the way up Bryanstone Road and into Oakleigh Close.

It’s five p.m. when I finally arrive home. I could have stayed later at work, but I decided I might be better off in my own house, all the facts and figures I could possibly need saved onto a memory stick.

I open the front door and immediately come up against a barrier. The kids have left their trainers by the porch door again, preventing entry without a big shoulder shove. I go through to the hall. Bags are dumped alongside discarded school jumpers, crisp packets litter the floor, the kitchen back door’s open to the garden where Custard is barking away, driving the neighbours potty no doubt.

Declan’s in the dining room reading under our IKEA spotlight. I can’t help feeling a tinge of resentment. He took the afternoon off which is almost unheard of for him, said he thought he was coming down with something and as he gets up from his chair, I notice he does look a mite dark-eyed, but nevertheless, what a mess. Is he blind? Couldn’t he have even picked up or, I gaze in dismay at a mound of breakfast dishes, loaded the dishwasher?

‘What’s going on?’ I inwardly fume.

‘Ah, Cathy, you’re back.’ He carefully marks his page with a bookmark and stands up to kiss me but I turn my cheek away.

‘You might at least have made a start.’

‘On what?’

On what?
‘On this bloody lot. I can’t do everything, you know. I’m running myself blind as it is. I’m not a miracle worker.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short,’ he teases gently. ‘I was just thinking–’

‘Well thinking isn’t doing, is it?’ I cut him off in a scarily replicated voice of my late mother before stomping up the stairs to the attic.

I flick through various websites, try and research similar campaigns I can pilfer from but nothing excites me. I have no plans, no ideas, no nothing. Zilch. I can’t
concentrate. The kids are running around, squealing, whinnying like ponies and jumping on the beds in some sort of chasing game. It’s all so distracting.

***

Hour and a half later and no further forward, I come down.

‘Do you want a cup of tea? I was just having one.’ Declan yawns causing me to copy him. Neither of us has been sleeping lately. Me because he’s been tossing, turning and muttering to himself; him because, well I guess, he’s been tossing, turning and muttering to himself.

‘No thanks.’

‘Is everything OK?’ He switches on the kettle.

‘No, actually, it’s not,’ I reply irritably, as Josh and Sophie race past me. ‘I’ve a massive presentation tomorrow and I haven’t had a moment to think straight. Look, do me a favour. Get the kids out of my hair for a few hours.’

I catch Josh and Sophie’s faces, betrayal and hurt swamping them both.
Our mother, wanting rid
. It was like I’d asked for them to be packed off to orphanages for the rest of their lives. I furiously try to backtrack. ‘Oh God, I…I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. Oh, my babypies,’ I kneel on one knee like an American TV mother might, although I just manage stop myself from doing a bad Southern Belle accent. ‘It’s only that Mommy, I mean, Mummy, has to work really really hard tonight, so if Daddy could take you out for a meal or something, it would be really really fab, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes!’ they both shriek as one, orphanages rapidly pushed from their fragile minds by the thought of pizzas, chips, mini-boxes of crayons and best of all the take home bounty of lollipops specifically designed to rot their teeth.

***

It’s a total nightmare. I’ve notes, but that’s all. No actual ideas on how to approach this. Right let’s start with the basics. RNW have a new car. Eco friendly. They need to advertise it. I make two columns. One saying Eco Friendly Car and the other Advertisement. Nah, doesn’t help.

It seemed to work much better with Henrietta’s burglar. At least I got a few sheets of paper out of it.

The doorbell rings.

‘And you can go away!’ I shout.

It rings again, but I ignore it. I’m not descending two flights of stairs just to meet somebody selling dishcloths or electricity men hoping to read the meter. Let them wait.

Next minute there’s a key in the lock. Oh for Christ’s sake, don’t tell me Declan’s back already. It’s only been… I check my watch, quarter of an hour. No, there’s no way. I glance out of the window into the street below. The car’s not in the road.

Someone’s climbing the stairs. I just heard a creak. And then a light goes off. My mind switches back to the Crouch End Creeper and a cold shiver runs through me. He only robs people when they’re out though, and I’m not out, am I? But then again, I reconsider, there’s no car outside, Declan’s driven off, they might have mistaken Sophie for me. She is growing taller and it was dark when they left…

There’s definitely someone in the house. I rise from my seat and quickly turn the key in the door, locking it. A moment or two later the handle shakes, then is rotated to the left, then to the right, after which there’s the sound of someone fiddling around above the lintel. I freeze. They must know I hide a spare key there…