When in Rome... (22 page)

“The thing is, it appears that HG has a track record of decimating all the companies they take over. They are telling us a very different story, according to the board, and I need to find out what the truth is.”

He pauses again, then looks up at us earnestly.

“Look, would you mind just digging around a bit? Find out anything you can about HG and previous mergers. I’ve got a board meeting on Friday, and if there’s anything I should know, I need to know it by then. Otherwise it could be too late. Okay?”

We both nod furiously and I mutter “Absolutely,” but it doesn’t come out loud enough because my throat is kind of caught, so I say it again and this time it comes out really loudly. Guy looks at me strangely.

“If this gets out now, it could jeopardize the future of the company, as well as our jobs,” he says slowly. “I need to know I can rely on your discretion.”

“Guy, you can depend on us. This won’t get out.” Nigel sounds amazingly calm, like an actor in a spy film or something. An actor with a really nasal London accent who sweats a lot.

Guy forces himself to smile as he stands up, but his forehead is creased in concentration. Personally, I’m grinning ear to ear. We’re not fired! Not only does Guy not suspect us of giving him the information, but he’s putting his trust in us to find out what’s going on! We are truly employees of the month!

Nigel is also looking visibly relieved. “It worked!” he whispers as we wait for the lift. “He didn’t suspect a thing! And now we’ve got the go-ahead to do somereal research.”

“Real?” I say uncertainly. “You do mean legal, don’t you?”

“Sometimes you need to bend the law to get the information you need,” says Nigel and his eyes are glinting. I wonder if Guy quite realizes what he is getting us all into.

Back at my desk I try to work out if there’s any way I can talk David round without having to steal the disk from him. But each time I think I’ve found the right words, I realize that by admitting that I know all about it, I’ll be revealing that I’ve been seeing Mike, and I just can’t risk it. If David doesn’t know I went to Rome to meet Mike, imagine how he’ll react if he finds out what I’ve been up to! It’s no good—I’m going to have to go through with it.

My phone rings and I answer it to find Nigel on the other line. Even though his desk is about five feet away from mine.

“Um, Nigel, why are you calling me?”

“It’s quieter. Honestly, Georgie, you’re going to have to learn how to do this sort of work. Right, I’m going to dig around HG some more and see what I can find.”

As he talks I can see him shoving everything on his desk to one side. That is so unlike Nigel—he isn’t even labeling anything! I miss most of what he’s saying because I’m so preoccupied with his new approach to paperwork, but I tune back in to the conversation to hear him say “What I want you to do is to find out more about Tryton. If they are involved in all the mergers, we need to know who they are—the people who run it, the investors, that kind of thing. Okay?”

I think it’s okay. I mean, it’s not the sort of research I usually do—it’s not just a case of ringing up some accountants or lawyers and asking their opinion on something—but it beats having to think about the Zip disk and Mike.

“Leave it with me,” I say in businesslike terms, and put the phone down purposefully. It feels good to have something proper to do. Something that is going to make a difference. I am Georgie Beauchamp, Private Investigator. It’s just me and Nigel against the world. Well, against a rather large accountancy publishing company anyway.

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Frankly, research isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, it’s exciting to start with, but then it turns into work and that’s pretty boring really. Tryton seem to be involved in everything from financing companies and buying them, to managing mergers and advising on acquisitions. They’ve been involved in hundreds of companies in the past few years, including every publishing company HG has been associated with, and it’s making my brain ache tracking everything they’ve done.

I’ve written a list of the personnel on the new pad that I’ve just taken out of the stationery cupboard. I know I could easily type them onto a Word document, but having a notepad feels more gritty and exciting. Like I’m a reporter or something taking important notes. And to make it a bit more interesting, I’ve written each name in a different color, and assigned them each a Clue character—it’s a lot more fun that way. There’s a Duncan Taylor at the helm—he’s the chairman (Colonel Mustard, written in yellow). Then there’s a Graham Brightman, who’s chief executive (Professor Plum, written in purple), and Jane Larcombe, who’s the finance director (Miss Scarlet, written in red). I underline each name for good measure. For some reason, the name Duncan Taylor rings some sort of bell with me, but I can’t think why. I had a teacher at school called Duncan Mailor, so maybe that’s it.

To be honest, I’m pretty bored with all this. And even if the company is sold, or merged or whatever, it’s not exactly the end of the world. I’m sure I can get another job. Probably a better one. I halfheartedly dig around a bit more and find a whole load of boring information aimed at investors, which I print out. I don’t really understand it, but I’m sure Nigel will be impressed when I present it to him. Actually, this investigative work is pretty easy really. You just go to a Web site and copy stuff off it. I don’t know how much people are paid for this kind of work, but I’m sure it’s too much. Except for me, obviously.

I log on to Reuters and do a search under “Tryton.” To my surprise there’s loads of stuff, so I print all that, too. Then I do a search for HG and print a whole load more pages. I start feeling a lot better. I’m going to have a brilliantly huge pile of paper for Nigel to go through, I think as I happily watch pages spew onto the floor.

Nigel gets up and walks over to the printer. He picks up the pages for me and brings them over. Now that’s what you call teamwork.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he hisses.

“Research! I’m getting loads of stuff for you to go through!”

“Georgie.” Nigel’s fists are clenched. “Did you understand when Guy talked about discretion?”

“Yes, of course I did,” I whisper confidently. “We’ve got to keep our mouths shut. I understand perfectly!”

“So then you may not want to have these pages coming out all over the floor. You may like to wait at the printer rather than leave them for someone else to find.”

Nigel stomps back to his desk. Honestly, I think he might be taking this a bit far, but he is a paranoia junkie.

I read through all the pages of names and numbers, hoping that something will come out and grab me like in Agatha Christie novels and I can say “Of course, they did it with mirrors” or something and I’ll have solved the mystery. But instead my eyes glaze over as I turn to story after story about finance and shares and profits and really boring stuff like that, and apart from some of the names being the same again and again, there’s nothing else that stands out at all.

When I’ve got a sufficiently impressive pile of papers, I decide I need a break, and I go out to buy a sandwich for lunch, which I eat at my desk. I am enjoying the feeling of doing something important. I feel all charged up and serious. I finally understand what David meant when he said that he really enjoys his work and how once he gets started on a case he can’t stop till it’s finished. Maybe I could get a job as a top research analyst for the government or something. I think I’d be really good at it. Maybe I should get David to introduce me to someone at the fraud office.

By the end of the day I have a pile of papers that is about four inches high. I did actually take a rather extended lunch break (Denise boughtHeat magazine at lunchtime and I spent most of the afternoon reading it), but still, it’s not how long you work, but what you achieve that matters, and I even had to go to the stationery cupboard to get more paper for the printer. How dedicated is that? I call up Nigel—I think he’ll prefer that to me walking over to his desk.

“Nigel, I’ve got some interesting information,” I say, imagining I’m Scully from “The X-Files.” “Maybe you should come over and take a look at it.”

Nigel doesn’t say anything; he just puts the phone down and comes over. This is so much better than what we used to do. He arrives at my desk looking quite exhilarated. “So what have you got?”

I show him my pile of printouts with a confident smile.

“Right,” he begins uncertainly. “But what’s the interesting information?”

“All of it!” I whisper excitedly. “I’ve got piles of stuff on Tryton, on HG, on Leary . . . look how many pages there are!”

Nigel looks at me strangely. “Georgie, interesting information means something that doesn’t add up, or a link that we didn’t know about. You need to go through the pages to find it.”

“I have!” I say hotly. At least I read through some of it. The problem is, I didn’t understand a word, but I’m not going to tell Nigel that.

“Right, well then, you’ll be able to tell me what this interesting information is.”

Nigel looks like he’s smirking. How dare he; I do all this work and now he’s making fun of me.

“Yes I can, actually,” I say angrily. “It’s that . . . that . . .”

I grab the top sheet from my pile and scan it for something to tell Nigel. It’s a page of information on the Leary Group, its board of directors, and its major shareholders. I spot a name that I recognize. “That Duncan Taylor is a major shareholder in Leary, and . . .” I pause for dramatic effect, “and is the chairman of Tryton.” I look at Nigel triumphantly. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s interesting or not, but at least it’s a link. Or should that be linkage?

Nigel looks really impressed in spite of himself. “I’m sorry, that’s really good work,” he says, the smirk disappearing from his face. “What else do we know about Duncan Taylor?”

I flick through the pages in front of me, but can’t find his name anywhere. Frankly, one incredible insight is, I think, quite enough for one day.

“Nigel, it’s been a long day. Maybe we should wait until tomorrow to find out about Duncan Taylor.”

“You can wait?” says Nigel incredulously. “You don’t need to know now?”

“Um, well, of course Iwant to, but, you know, sometimes you’ve got to be patient,” I say knowledgeably. “If we rush it, we could screw up.”

Nigel nods slowly. “You could be right. But can I take these anyway? Maybe a fresh set of eyes will be able to find out something else.” A fresh set of eyes. Yes, that would be good.

“Why don’t you brief me tomorrow morning?” I say crisply. I’m getting into this whole business lark. The good thing about going out with David is that you learn all sorts of phrases that make you sound incredibly businesslike. He’s always asking people to brief him or to debrief him. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is, so I use them interchangeably. Actually I don’t really use them at all, but I’m going to from now on. I might even buy a proper suit and a briefcase and start striding around purposefully. Who knows, when Guy sees all the work I’ve done, I may get promoted. I could be a high-flying business executive with loads of airmiles and a mobile phone that never stops ringing.

I look at my watch and to my amazement it’s nearly five-thirty. We finish at five, and I’m never late going home unless Nigel forces me. Everyone else has left already. I realize I’m going to be late for David if I’m not careful. I quickly turn off my computer and put on my coat. Nigel has gone back to his hunched-over-computer position, so I don’t bother to say good-bye to him; I just give him a quick wave and go.

I decide against taking the lift. (It’s superstition. I never take the lift on my way out of work in case it breaks down and I’m stuck in it overnight. Whereas I always take it in the morning; if it breaks down then, it means sitting in the lift instead of working and that’s fine by me. So long as I’ve got a magazine or something, obviously.)

The stairs at Leary are at the back of the building so I make my way across the office quickly. I open the door to the stairwell and I’ve just started walking down when I hear two people having a fraught discussion. Any fraught discussions at Leary generally mean fantastic gossip; I once heard one of the directors telling a girl from communications that her backside was as whippable as a horse’s. Denise loved that; she told everyone and no one ever found out that it came from me. I didn’t mean for it to end up in the company newsletter and for the director to leave, but that was hardly my fault.

“What did he say exactly?” I hear one man say.

“He asked about HG’s future plans. But in detail. He wanted to know the three-year plan and stuff. Wouldn’t be a problem, but he said it in front of a couple of board members and got them all interested, too.”

“Okay. We’ll just have to fudge it. Why don’t you send Guy to New York for a few weeks to do some reconnaissance work? If he’s out of the picture, I can easily smooth things over with the board. Once they see the financial implications they won’t give a fuck about three-year plans.”

“Even the Learys? They always get so emotionally involved,” says the other man sarcastically.

“The Learys? The guys are idiots. Come on, all three of them are about to pop their clogs anyway. Look, it’ll be fine, so long as we get round Guy.”

“If you say so. Are you still on for a spot of golf tomorrow?”

“Absolutely . . .”

The voices are getting closer so I nip back to the door and quickly close it behind me. This is like being in a film. So Guy could be sent to New York because of the information Nigel sent him. And by the time he gets back it’ll be too late! I’ve got to warn him somehow. I peek through the glass panel of the stairway door and see our chief exec, Robin Friend, and some other guy I don’t know walk past.

Breathlessly I slip back to my department and find Nigel.

“You won’t believe what I’ve just heard!”

Nigel looks up with a start. “I thought you’d gone.”

He isn’t looking up at me, but staring at something on his computer screen.