A Dream Come True (10 page)

Ha! Your office sounds a shambles!
wrote Hannah
. They need you in charge.

Ellie paused before she replied. She wanted to defend the magazine. The Editorial Department wasn't a shambles. Angel and Francesca set very high standards and they achieved them too. Piano and Carlotta could be spiteful, but that didn't seem to affect their work. The water company messing up was just a nuisance. That sort of thing could happen to anyone. Then she remembered Angel's and Francesca's reactions to Sapphire missing the important fashion shoot. That wasn't just a nuisance. It was a really big deal. They had obviously been shocked as well as angry.

Not a shambles,
she wrote,
just bad luck, but it's stressful enough meeting tight deadlines without stuff going wrong.

Hannah had to go for her dinner, so they signed off and Ellie put her computer to sleep. She sat with her chin in her hands, staring at the blank screen. It probably
was
mostly just bad luck, but it wouldn't hurt to keep her eyes and ears open. After all, her article had been altered deliberately, and she had no proof against Piano. What if, instead of just playing a nasty trick on Ellie, someone was intent on harming the magazine? She'd thought the article had been a personal attack. What if it wasn't, what if it was part of something bigger…like the cancellation of the shoot? Together, those two things had caused a lot more work and had threatened the look of the next issue. Ellie would feel terrible if she didn't act on her instinct. Because that's what it was, instinct; and Ellie Ixos was sure as anything that a good journalist should always be prepared to trust her instinct.

Now Ellie was on the lookout for a troublemaker, she knew she would have to be careful. Instinct was one thing but proof was quite another, and if there really was someone messing things up she would need to be able to prove it; she couldn't accuse anyone without proof. The first thing to do was to write everyone's names down and see who she could eliminate. She got the notebook out of her bag and turned to the page where her father had written
Trust your instincts
.

Ellie stared at the phrase. Okay, but she also needed not to take anyone at face value. Proper detectives had to be capable of seeing what people were
really
like, not how they wanted you to see them.

Ellie took her best pen and thought for a moment. Then she wrote a list of the people she knew who worked for
Heart.

Angel, Francesca, Piano, Carlotta, Flynn, Sophie, Joe, Uncle Patrick
. Of course, lots of other people worked for the magazine in different departments, but she only knew people in editorial, the post room and Flynn who – as one of the IT people – worked in all the departments. She made a note to ask Sophie if anything was going wrong in other offices. She or Flynn would know. Then Ellie remembered that even they were suspects and asking that sort of question might alert them. It wasn't proving very easy, being a detective.

After staring at the list and not having the proof to clear anyone of at least a tiny bit of suspicion, she decided to bide her time and not let her imagination run away with her. Two things going wrong, however annoying, didn't necessarily make a conspiracy against the magazine. She only had another four days left working there, and her concern would almost certainly come to nothing. Besides, she couldn't think why anyone would make trouble. She wasn't living in a detective story. Things didn't happen like that in real life.

In the morning, Ellie arrived a bit late. Heavy traffic had held her bus up, so it wasn't her fault, but she fully expected someone to tell her off. However, that was the last thing on anyone's mind. Piano and Francesca were crouched in front of the water cooler, and Ellie could see a large patch of wet carpet. What on earth had happened?

“Ellie!” called Francesca, as soon as she noticed her. “Run and fetch more paper towels from the loo. Hurry!”

She took the towels Ellie brought and used them to soak up a little more water. “Here,” she said, standing up and straightening her skirt. “You and Piano carry on. Angel will be here in a minute and I need to get ready. Just do what you can.”

“What happened?” asked Ellie, wadding up the towels as best she could, though the paper quickly became soggy and useless.

“Some idiot jammed a load of cups in the cooler so all the water leaked out,” said Piano. “You, no doubt.”

“Of course I didn't!” protested Ellie.

“Well, since you've been here, all sorts of things have gone wrong,” said Piano, getting up. “And as far as I can see, that makes it your fault.” She stormed off to her desk, and Ellie watched her go.

How dare Piano blame me
, Ellie thought furiously. Then a chill ran through her body. Most of the things that had gone wrong
could
be blamed on a useless person, rather than a vindictive one. If Piano chose to blame her, might the others do the same? Ellie couldn't prove that she hadn't jammed cups under the water cooler, and from Piano's remarks it was obvious that soon everyone would be looking for someone to blame for all their recent misfortune. If Ellie didn't want to be made into a scapegoat she needed to find out who really
was
to blame…and quickly.

And then things got a whole lot worse. A scream of anguish came from the direction of Piano's desk and Francesca, Carlotta and Ellie all stared. Piano had her hands up to her mouth and was staring at the computer screen. “My article! It's all gone Wingdings!”

Francesca got up and went over to Piano. “Whatever do you mean?”

Piano didn't reply. She just pointed one trembling finger at the screen.

Francesca looked. For a moment she paled, then she looked cross. “For goodness' sake, Piano. You've pressed a wrong button or something. Change it back to your usual font.” Francesca went back to her desk and picked up a few sheets of paper. “Ellie, take these into Angel's office and put them on her desk, please. And make sure the cushions on her sofa are properly plumped up. She hates it when they look untidy.” She looked thoughtfully at the still-sodden carpet. “I'll put a chair in front of the cooler until the carpet dries out, so no one stands on it.”

As Ellie took the papers, Francesca gave her a piercing look. Ellie tried to look as innocent as she felt. Who on earth would have flooded the carpet? And how could she prove that it hadn't been her?

In Angel's office, Ellie was just about to put the papers on the Editor's desk when she noticed a few specks of black dust. Ellie brushed the specks away with her hand. To her horror, instead of disappearing, the specks smeared over the blonde wood of the desk, leaving nasty, black marks. Hastily, Ellie reached into her pocket for a tissue and tried to wipe the desk. But there were more of the tiny black specks everywhere, and the more Ellie rubbed, the worse they got. Ellie tried not to panic, but it wasn't easy. The last thing she wanted was to be caught in Angel's office, smearing black marks over her pristine desk!

Then she remembered the cushions. Francesca had reminded her to plump them up. She went over to the sofa, but realized that her hands were covered in black marks. There was no way she could touch the powder blue cushions with hands like that! And with her heart in her mouth she noticed something else. On the white leather of the sofa were more black specks and there were more still on the white carpet. Surely this wasn't meant as a joke? As Ellie heard Angel approaching she looked at her blackened hands and was sure that she was going to be accused, tried and judged without any means to defend herself.

Angel paused at the entrance to her office and glared disapprovingly at Ellie. “What are you doing skulking in my office?”

Ellie tried to hide her dirty hands behind her back. “Um…Francesca asked me to put some things on your desk and to look at your cushions but—”

“But you couldn't simply do it and clear out, you had to poke about in case you found something interesting to report to your uncle.”

“No!”

“Get out then. I'll see to the cushions myself.”

“But there's…”

Angel plonked Ferdinand in his basket and took off her pale yellow coat. She made to throw it onto the sofa but Ellie yelled just in time.

“Don't!”

Angel stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“Don't put your coat on the sofa. It's all dir—”

But just then another piercing, Piano-voiced scream came from the outer office. Both Angel and Ellie froze and then Angel threw her coat at Ellie. “Hang it up. And then get back to your desk and don't move until someone tells you to. Now!”

Angel watched as Ellie hung the coat up as carefully as she could without smearing it with the black from her hands. She stood to one side to let Ellie out of the office, then she followed Ellie to find out what all the fuss was about.

Francesca was on the phone and Piano had her face in her hands. Carlotta was nowhere to be seen.

“What is all this noise about?” demanded Angel.

Francesca put the phone down and faced the Editor. “Something has gone wrong with the formatting of the magazine articles. I thought it was just a simple mistake when Piano first showed me, but it looks as if it's worse than that. Every article has changed. And when I tried to change the font back from Wingdings to our usual ones, the format was still all wrong. I've just called IT for help.”

Angel had a face like thunder, but she spoke calmly, totally in control. “So the content is all right. It's just the formatting that needs redoing?”

Francesca nodded. “So far as I can tell. It's going to take time, but seems to be retrievable. I'd like IT to see if they can find any other nasty surprises though.”

“Good thinking.” Angel's sharp gaze raked the outer office, like a captain might view his ship in a storm, taking everything in. Her eyes widened slightly when she noticed the chair in front of the water cooler. “Piano, stop being hysterical and put that chair back where it belongs. It looks untidy.”

Francesca hardly flinched. “I put it there.”

Angel narrowed her eyes. “I assume there was some sort of reason why you wanted to make it difficult for my staff to get a drink of water?”

Ellie found herself feeling sorry for Francesca, but the Deputy Editor was made of stern stuff. “There's been a leak,” she said briskly. “The carpet is wet and I didn't want it stepped on until it dries.”

Angel frowned. “If anything else goes wrong in this office I shall consider that someone is trying to seriously disrupt the production of our magazine and take steps to get rid of them immediately.”

Ellie wanted to voice her agreement, but Angel turned her gaze in Ellie's direction, and she found herself shrinking back against the wall instead. She didn't utter a word until Angel had disappeared into her office. Then she knew she simply
had
to speak. “Francesca!”

“What now?”

“Angel's office. When I went in there was a load of black specks everywhere.” She opened her hands. “I tried to clean them off the desk but they smeared. I…I don't know what it is but I managed to stop her throwing her coat on the sofa…
Someone
has got it in for this office. Obviously
I
know it's not me, but I don't know who it is…”

Francesca had stopped listening. “Make yourself scarce, Ellie. I can do without your ‘help'.” Without another word she hurried towards the Editor's office with an extremely worried expression on her face.

Piano was sitting at her desk looking shocked, while Carlotta was still absent from hers. If Francesca didn't want her, there was only one place that Ellie wanted to be. She headed out of the office and made for the lift.

Fortunately there was no one in the lift, and Ellie had a chance to collect her thoughts. She didn't care any more about being a detective and eliminating all suspects. She was going to trust her instincts on this one. She needed a friend to talk to, and that friend was Sophie. No way could
she
have caused all the havoc in the editorial office. She was as innocent as Ellie herself.