I hand over the laminated card and she gives it to one of the security personnel. He says something about “nice photo,” but I’m not listening. An odd feeling is creeping over me.
Santa Claus. Wasn’t that bloke who called Violet’s phone going on about Santa Claus? Is that a coincidence?
As Stephanie leads me across the marble floor to the main doors, I’m trying to remember what he said. It was all about surgery. Incisions. Something about no trace—
I stop dead, my heart thumping. That’s the same phrase Sam used just now. No trace.
“OK?” Stephanie notices I’ve stopped.
“Fine! Sorry.” I shoot her a smile and resume walking along, but my mind is wheeling. What else did that guy say? What exactly was it about Santa Claus? Come on, Poppy, think.
“Well, bye! Thanks for visiting!” Stephanie smiles once more.
“Thank you!” And as I step outside onto the pavement, I feel a jolt inside. I have it: Adios, Santa Claus.
More people are coming out of the building, and I step aside to where a window cleaner is swooshing suds all over the glass. I reach into my bag and start scrabbling around for the Lion King program. Please don’t say I’ve lost it, please—
I haul it out, and stare at my scribbled words.
April 18: Scottie has a contact, keyhole surgery, no trace, be fucking careful.
April 20: Scottie rang. It’s done. Surgical strike. No trace. Genius stuff. Adios, Santa Claus.
It’s as though the voices are playing back in my mind. It’s as though I’m listening to them again. I’m hearing the older drawl and the young, reedy voice.
And suddenly I know without a shadow of a doubt who left the first message. It was Justin Cole.
Oh. My God.
I’m quivering all over. I have to get back in and show these messages to Sam. They mean something, I don’t know what, but something. I push the big glass doors open, and the concierge girl immediately appears in front of me. When I was with Sam she waved us through, but now she smiles remotely at me, as though she hasn’t just seen me walking along with Stephanie.
“Hello. Do you have an appointment?”
“Not exactly,” I say breathlessly. “I need to see Sam Roxton at White Globe Consulting. Poppy Wyatt.”
I wait while she turns away and makes a call on her cell phone. I’m trying to stand there patiently, but I’m barely able to contain myself. Those messages are something to do with this whole memo thing. I know they are.
“I’m sorry.” The girl faces me with professional pleasantness. “Sam is unavailable right now.”
“Could you tell him it’s urgent?” I shoot back. “Please?”
Clearly restraining a desire to tell me to go away, the girl turns and makes another call, which lasts all of thirty seconds.
“I’m sorry.” Another frozen smile. “Mr. Roxton is busy for the remainder of the day, and most of the other staff are away at the company conference. Perhaps you should phone his assistant and make an appointment. Now, if you could please make way for our other guests?”
She’s ushering me out of the main doors. Make way clearly means piss off.
“Look, I need to see him.” I duck round her and start heading for the escalators. “Please let me go up there. It’ll be fine.”
“Excuse me!” she says, grabbing me by the sleeve. “You can’t just march in there! Thomas?”
Oh, you have to be kidding. She’s calling over the security guard. What a wimp.
“But it’s a real emergency.” I appeal to both of them. “He’ll want to see me.”
“Then call and make an appointment!” she snaps, as the security guard leads me to the main doors.
“Fine!” I snap back. “I will! I’ll call right now! See you in two minutes!” I stomp onto the pavement and reach into my pocket.
And then the full horror hits me. I don’t have a phone.
I don’t have a phone.
I’m powerless. I can’t get into the building and I can’t ring Sam. I can’t tell him about this. I can’t do anything. Why didn’t I buy a new phone earlier? Why don’t I always walk around with a spare phone? It should be the law, like having a spare tire.
“Excuse me?” I hurry over to the window cleaner. “Do you have a phone I can borrow?”
“Sorry, love.” He clicks his teeth. “I do, but it’s out of battery.”
“Right.” I smile, breathless with anxiety. “Thanks anyway—oh!”
I stop midstream, peering through the glass into the building. God loves me! There’s Sam! He’s standing twenty yards away in the lobby, talking animatedly to some guy in a suit holding a leather briefcase. Maybe that’s Julian from legal.
As they head toward the lifts, I push open the main doors, but Thomas the security guard is waiting for me.
“I don’t think so,” he says, blocking my way.
“But I need to get in.”
“If you could step aside—”
“But he’ll want to see me! Sam! Over here! It’s Poppy! Saaam!” I yell, but someone’s moving a sofa in the reception area, and the scraping sound on the marble drowns me out.
“No, you don’t!” says the security guard firmly. “Out you go.” His hands are around my shoulders and, the next thing, I find myself back on the pavement, panting in outrage.
I can’t believe that just happened. He threw me out! I’ve never been physically thrown out of anywhere in my life. I didn’t think they were allowed to do that.
A crowd of people has arrived at the entrance and I stand aside to let them go in, my thoughts skittering wildly. Should I hurry down the street and try to find a pay phone? Should I try to get in again? Should I make a run for it into the lobby and see how far I get before I’m tackled to the ground? Sam’s standing in front of the lifts now, still talking to the guy with the leather briefcase. He’ll be gone in a few moments. It’s torture. If I could only attract his attention …
“No luck?” says the window cleaner sympathetically from the top of his ladder. He’s covered an entire massive pane of glass with suds and is about to wipe them off with his scraper thing.
And then it comes to me.
“Wait!” I call urgently up to him. “Don’t wipe! Please!”
I’ve never written in soap suds in my life before, but luckily I’m not aiming for anything very ambitious. Just MAS. In six-foot-high letters. A bit wobbly—but who’s fussing?
“Nice job,” says the window cleaner approvingly from where he’s sitting. “You could come into business with me.”
“Thanks,” I say modestly, and wipe my brow, my arm aching.
If Sam doesn’t see that, if someone doesn’t notice it and poke him on the shoulder and say, “Hey, look at that—”
“Poppy?”
I turn and look down from my perch on the window cleaner’s ladder. Sam’s standing there on the pavement, looking up at me incredulously.
“Is that addressed to me?”
We travel upstairs in silence. Vicks is waiting in Sam’s office, and as she sees me she bangs her forehead with the heel of her hand.
“This had better be good,” says Sam tersely, closing the glass door behind us. “I have five minutes. There’s a bit of an emergency going on—”
I feel a flash of anger. Does he think I don’t realize that? Does he think I wrote SAM in six-foot sudsy letters on a whim?
“I appreciate that,” I say, matching his curt tone. “I just thought you might be interested in these messages, which came in to Violet’s phone last week. This phone.” I reach for the phone, still lying on his desk.
“Whose phone is that?” says Vicks, eyeing me with suspicion.
“Violet’s,” replies Sam. “My PA? Clive’s daughter? Shot off to be a model?”
“Oh, her.” Vicks frowns again and jerks a thumb at me. “Well, what was she doing with Violet’s phone?”
Sam and I exchange glances.
“Long story,” says Sam at last. “Violet threw it away. Poppy was
… babysitting it.”
“I got a couple of messages, which I wrote down.” I put the Lion King program down between them and read the messages out for good measure, as I know my writing isn’t that clear. “Scottie has a contact, keyhole surgery, no trace, be fucking careful.” I point at the program. “This second message was a few days later, from Scottie himself. It’s done. Surgical strike. No trace. Genius stuff. Adios, Santa Claus.” I let the words sink in a moment before I add, “The first message was from Justin Cole.”
“Justin?” Sam looks alert.
“I didn’t recognize his voice at the time, but I do now. It was him talking about keyhole surgery and no trace.”
“Vicks.” Sam is looking at her. “Come on. You’ve got to see now—”
“I see nothing! Just a few random words. How can we even be sure it was Justin?”
Sam turns to me. “Are these voice mails? Can we still listen to them?”
“No. They were just … you know. Phone messages. They left them and I wrote them down.”
Vicks looks perplexed. “OK, this makes no sense. Did you introduce yourself? Why would Justin have left a message with you?” She exhales angrily. “Sam, I don’t have time for this.”
“He didn’t realize I was a person,” I explain, flushing. “I pretended to be an answering machine.”
“What?” She stares at me, uncomprehending.
“You know.” I put on my voice-mail-lady voice. “I’m afraid the person you’ve called is not available. Please leave a message. And then he left the message and I wrote it down.”
Sam gives a muffled snort of laughter, but Vicks looks speechless. She picks up the Lion King program, frowning at the words, then flicking through to the inside pages, although the only information she’ll find there is the actors’ biographies. At last she puts it back down on the table. “Sam, this means nothing. It changes nothing.”
“It does not mean nothing.” He shakes his head adamantly. “This is it! Right here.” He jabs a thumb at the program. “This is what’s been going on.”
“But what’s been going on?” Her voice rises in exasperation. “Who’s Scottie, for fuck’s sake?”
“He called Sir Nicholas ‘Santa Claus.’ ” Sam’s face is screwed up with thought. “Which means it’s likely to be someone in the company. But where? In IT?”
“Is Violet anything to do with it?” I venture. “It was her phone, after all.”
There’s silence for a moment—then Sam shakes his head, almost regretfully.
“She was only here for about five minutes, and her father’s a good friend of Sir Nicholas…. I just can’t believe she’s involved.”
“So why did they leave messages for her? Did they have the wrong number or something?”
“Unlikely.” Sam wrinkles his nose. “I mean, why this number?”
Automatically I look at the phone, flashing away on the desk. I wonder in a detached way if I’ve got any voice mails. But somehow, right at this minute, the rest of my life seems a million miles away. The world has shrunk to this room. Both Sam and Vicks have sunk into chairs and I follow suit.
“Who had Violet’s phone before her?” says Vicks suddenly. “It’s a company phone. She was only here for, what, three weeks? Could it have been someone else’s number previously and those messages were left by mistake?”
“Yes!” I look up, galvanized. “People are always calling the wrong number by mistake. And emailing the wrong address. I even do it myself. You forget to delete it and press the contact’s name and the old number pops up and you don’t realize. Especially if you go to some generic voice mail.”
I can see Sam’s mind working overtime.
“Only one way to find out,” he says, reaching for a landline phone on the desk. He jabs in a three-digit speed-dial and waits.
“Hi, Cynthia. Sam here,” he says easily. “Just a quick question about the cell phone that was allocated to Violet, my PA. I was wondering: Did anyone else have it before her? Did anyone else ever have that number?”
As he listens, his face changes. He makes a fierce, silent gesture at Vicks, who shrugs back helplessly.
“Great,” he says. “Thanks, Cynthia—”
From the stream of tinny sound coming from the phone, it’s clear this Cynthia likes to talk.
“I’d better go….” Sam is rolling his eyes desperately. “Yes, I know the phone should have been delivered back…. No, we haven’t misplaced it, don’t worry…. Yes, very unprofessional. No warning … I know, company property … I’ll pop it along … yes … yes …”
At last he manages to extricate himself. He puts the receiver down and is silent for an agonizing three seconds before turning to Vicks.
“Ed.”
“No.” Vicks breathes.
Sam has picked up the phone and is staring incredulously at it. “This was Ed’s company phone till four weeks ago. Then it was reassigned to Violet. I had no idea.” Sam turns to me. “Ed Exton was—”
“I remember.” I nod. “Finance director. Fired. Suing the company.”
“Jesus.” Vicks seems genuinely shell-shocked. She’s sagged back against her chair. “Ed.”
“Who else?” Sam seems absolutely wired by this discovery. “Vicks, this isn’t just an orchestrated plan, it’s a bloody three-movement symphony. Nick is smeared. Bruce axes him because he’s a pusillanimous asshole. The board needs another CEO, quick. Ed kindly announces he’ll drop his lawsuit and step back in to save the day; Justin’s nest is feathered.”
“They’d really go to all that trouble?” says Vicks skeptically.
Sam’s mouth twists into a half smile. “Vicks, do you have any idea quite how much Ed loathes Nick? Some hacker was paid good money to change that memo and remove the old one from the system. I reckon Ed would spend a hundred grand to ruin Nick’s reputation. Two hundred, even.”
Vicks’s face twists with distaste.
“This would never happen if the company was run by women,” she says at last. “Never. Bloody macho … twats.” She gets to her feet and heads over to the window, staring out at the traffic, her arms hunched around her body.
“The question is: Who made this happen? Who actually executed it?” Sam is sitting on his desk, tapping his pen against his knuckles in an urgent drumbeat, his face taut with concentration. “Scottie. Who’s that? Someone Scottish?”
“He didn’t actually sound Scottish,” I volunteer. “Maybe his nickname’s a joke?”
Sam suddenly focuses on me, the light dawning on his face. “That’s it. Of course. Poppy, would you know his voice again if you heard it?”
“Sam!” Vicks interrupts sharply before I can answer. “No way. You can’t be serious.”
“Vicks, would you step out of denial for one second?” Sam rises to his feet, erupting in fury. “The faked memo wasn’t an accident. The leak to ITN wasn’t an accident. This is happening. Someone did this to Nick. This isn’t just a matter of hushing up a little bit of embarrassing”—he gropes for a moment—”I don’t know, Facebook activity. It’s a smear. It’s fraud.”
“It’s a theory.” She squares up to him. “Nothing more, Sam. A few words on a fucking Lion King program.”
I feel a bit hurt. It’s not my fault all I had with me was a Lion King program.
“We need to identify this guy Scottie.” Sam turns to me. “Would you know his voice if you heard it again?”
“Yes,” I say, a little nervous at his intensity.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes!”
“Right. Well, let’s do it. Let’s go and find him.”
“Sam, stop right now!” Vicks sounds furious. “You’re insane! What are you going to do, get her to listen to every staff member talk till she hears that voice?”
“Why not?” says Sam mutinously.
“Because it’s the most ridiculous fucking idea I’ve ever heard!” Vicks explodes. “That’s why not!”
Sam regards her steadily, then turns to me. “C
ome on, Poppy. We’ll trawl the building.”
Vicks is shaking her head. “And if she does recognize his voice? Then what? Citizen’s arrest?”
“Then it’ll be a start,” says Sam. “Ready, Poppy?”
“Poppy.” Vicks comes over and faces me head-on. Her cheeks are pink and she’s breathing hard. “I have no idea who you are. But you don’t have to listen to Sam. You don’t have to do this. You owe him nothing. This is all nothing to do with you.”
“She doesn’t mind,” says Sam. “Do you, Poppy?”
Vicks ignores him. “Poppy, I strongly advise you to leave. Now.”
“That’s not the kind of girl Poppy is,” says Sam with a scowl. “She doesn’t bail out on people. Do you?” He meets my eyes, and his gaze is so unexpectedly warm, I feel an inward glow.
I turn to Vicks. “You’re wrong. I do owe Sam one. And Sir Nicholas is a potential patient at my physio practice, actually. So he is something to do with me too.”
I quite liked dropping that in, although I bet Sir Nicholas never does make it down to Balham.
“And anyway,” I continue, lifting my chin nobly, “whoever it was, whether I knew them or not, if I could help in some way, I would. I mean, if you can help, you have to help. Don’t you think?”
Vicks stares at me for a moment, as though trying to work me out—then gives a strange, wry smile.
“OK. Well, you got me. I can’t argue against that.”
“Let’s go.” Sam makes for the door.
I grab my bag and wish yet again that my T-shirt didn’t have a huge great splotch on it.
“Hey, Wallander,” Vicks chimes in sarcastically. “Small point. In case you’d forgotten, everyone’s either at the conference or on their way to the conference.”
There’s another silence, apart from Sam tapping his pen furiously again. I don’t dare speak. I certainly don’t dare look at Vicks.
“Poppy,” says Sam at last. “Do you have a few hours? Could you come down to Hampshire?”
77 Or than I do, for that matter. Not that anyone’s asked me.
This is totally surreal. And thrilling. And a bit of a pain. All at the same time.
It’s not that I’m regretting my noble gesture, exactly. I still mean what I said in the office. How could I possibly walk away? How could I not at least try to help Sam out? But, on the other hand, I thought it would take about half an hour. Not a train journey down to Hampshire, just for starters.