False Report (24 page)

Jeremy hadn't yet appeared for breakfast. He'd been humming something soft and low in the spare bedroom when she went up to bed. A lullaby? It had certainly rocked her off to sleep.

She took her second cup of coffee down the stairs. The door to Maggie's office was open, and she was inside, talking volubly on her mobile phone while leafing through some papers. Her computer was already up and running. Oliver must have fixed it to respond only to Maggie's new password – whatever that might be. Bea could only hope the girl had written it down somewhere not too easy to find, and also that she could remember where she had put it. Maggie was a wonder in many ways, but remembering pin numbers and passwords was not her forte.

After her down the stairs came Oliver, yawning and carrying his own cup of coffee. He followed Bea into her office and made sure she knew how to start the larger recording device he'd installed in the top drawer of her desk. ‘You understand how to start and stop it?'

She gave him a Look. Did he think she was a complete idiot?

He grinned, said, ‘Good luck,' and went to join Maggie, closing the door of her office behind him.

Bea booted up her computer and fed in the new password. Some emails had come in over the weekend. Nothing much to worry about there. No complaints; thank goodness.

She shut her eyes and made herself be still.
Dear Lord, grant me wisdom to deal with this.

She could hear the girls arriving next door. Ianthe would be among the earliest, in order to give out the new day's password to the rest of the staff so that they could access the system.

Ah. Sounds of alarm. Ianthe had discovered the loss of one of her computers, and then the smashed lock of her desk drawer. More sounds of confusion. Cries of ‘Ianthe, I can't get on to the computer!'

Surprise, surprise. Bea sighed deeply, switched on the recording device Oliver had installed in her top drawer, and opened the French windows on to the garden. It was a cool, overcast morning, though it would probably warm up later.

‘Mrs Abbot? I'm sorry to say there's been a break-in. We'll have to inform the police. My desk drawer has been forced, and one of our computers is missing.'

‘No problem, Ianthe. I had to gain access to your drawer yesterday, so I broke it open. I'll get someone in to fix it. And I'm selling one of our computers to Maggie, who needs one.'

‘What? But . . .'

Cries from the girls in the big office. ‘Ianthe, can you give us the password?'

Ianthe disappeared, saying, ‘Just a moment . . .'

Bea waited.

Ianthe returned, looking flushed. ‘There's a fault in the system, and we can't get in. Who do we call to get it fixed?'

‘No problem. I'll give you the password, and you can get everyone started.'

A hesitation. ‘There's a new password?'

‘Yes, I put it in. A new one for each day. A splendid idea of yours. Shall I write it down for you, or can you remember it? It's the usual jumble of letters and figures, upper case and lower.'

Another hesitation. ‘Perhaps you'd better write it down for me.' Sensible girl.

Bea wrote it down on a Post-it note. ‘Oh, and by the way, Maggie's office is out of bounds in future. I'm getting in a part-time secretary for her, and Miss Brook will be coming in to do her accounts every Friday afternoon. You are quite right; Maggie needs to run her own office now.'

Ianthe took the Post-it note, got as far as the door, and stopped. ‘How are we to manage? We'll be short of a computer.'

‘Get the girls started, and we'll have a chat about it.'

Ianthe left. Bea let out a long breath. That had gone well, hadn't it? Would Ianthe understand that she'd lost control, and accept it? That would be the best scenario, wouldn't it?

No. Back she came. ‘I've accessed today's password, but I can't seem to change it.'

‘Why should you? I've had the computers reprogrammed so that the only computer that can set the password is this one – and I have to input another password to get into the system. All right?'

Ianthe closed the door and sat, unasked, in the client's chair in front of Bea's desk. So she was going to fight, was she?

Bea sat back in her chair, steepled her fingers, and smiled at Ianthe over them. If the woman wanted a fight, then she should have one.

Ianthe was wearing a white blouse and black skirt. Bea's outfit cost at least twice as much.

Ianthe looked as if she'd come straight from the hairdresser, but Bea's ash-blonde mop had been cut by a master.

No contest. Such apparently small points can sway fortunes in battle. Bea didn't rejoice that she had more money at her disposal than Ianthe, but she did feel it gave her a slight advantage.

Ianthe said, ‘I thought you trusted me to run the office for you.'

Bea picked her words with care. ‘Perhaps I didn't spend enough time with you when you first came, explaining the way I like things done. The agency is my baby and my livelihood, after all.'

‘But you're going to sell it.'

‘What gave you that idea?'

Ianthe reddened. ‘But I thought . . . I was told . . .'

‘Who told you? What did you think?'

Ianthe fidgeted. ‘Well, we could see, we all could, that you weren't . . . that you'd lost interest. There were signs, little mistakes—'

‘And it was your job to put the mistakes right? Or to make them seem worse than they were?'

‘Of course not!'

‘That's what you did with Miss Brook, wasn't it? You arranged things so that she would feel she was losing her grip. When she told me she wanted to resign, I was shocked. It seemed to me that her brain was as sharp as ever, and that if she had made one or two slips, she was still worth her weight in gold to the agency. But, I believed that if she wanted to retire, I had no right to ask her to stay.

‘However, time has passed since then, and she's had time to reflect on what happened in the weeks before she left. I spent an hour on the phone to her this past weekend and was delighted to hear that she still misses us. I asked how she'd feel about returning for a few hours each week, and after some persuasion, she said she would . . . but that she didn't feel able to work with you any more.'

‘Naturally. She's well past her sell-by date.'

‘She says you “forgot” to post her invoices to customers, or sent them out incorrectly addressed.'

‘And you believed her?' A light laugh.

‘Oh yes. I've never known her to lie about anything, and why should she make up such a story? I also spoke to Celia, to ask why she'd felt it necessary to leave us after so many happy years. Like Miss Brook, she'd felt bruised by the treatment you'd given her, though it seems she suffered a more subtle offensive. There were unkind remarks meant to be overheard, and laughter behind her back. There's a thousand different ways a group of people can make someone in their midst feel unwanted. The question is: why did you want to get rid of Miss Brook and Celia, and all the other girls who'd been working for me for a long time? I had a good team out there when you arrived, and now there's no one whose face I recognize.'

‘They were inefficient and lazy. They had to go.'

‘That's for me to judge, not you. You took advantage of me going away on holiday to get rid of the last of them, didn't you? You thought, quite rightly, that I wouldn't make a fuss if you presented me with a fait accompli.'

‘Celia was a bad influence. She questioned every change I made.'

‘I wonder why. But let's move on to Maggie. When Celia was responsible for Maggie's paperwork, everything went like clockwork. Since Celia left, all kinds of mistakes have been made, haven't they? Errors were made in copying out Maggie's figures, estimates missed their dates. So whose competence are we calling into question now?'

Ianthe's colour was mounting. ‘Genuine mistakes, I'm sure.'

‘I suppose you'd say that any errors I made were genuine mistakes, too.'

‘Of course.' A constricted tone.

‘What about the errors that you made? Were those genuine mistakes, too?'

‘I . . . what errors?'

Bea sighed. This was like potting sitting ducks. Almost cruel. She pushed back her chair. ‘Ianthe, I could ask you to resign right now—'

‘On what grounds?'

‘Three times I asked you to give me the day's password. That's three warnings.'

‘You can't!'

‘Give me one good reason why not.'

‘Because . . .' She twisted her hands together, and yes, there were tears in her eyes. ‘Because I lost my job when Croxtons closed down, and this is a good job. I don't want to lose it. If I've misinterpreted any of your instructions, if I've gone too far in trying to protect your interests, then—'

‘If I sold out to Jackson's, would he give you a job?'

‘No!'

‘If I went into partnership or sold out to Holland and Butcher . . .'

Ianthe drew in her breath and changed colour. ‘You've heard from them already?'

Bea said, ‘Now we're getting somewhere. I know you were office manageress at Croxtons before they went bust last year, and that they used to handle all the work for Holland and Butcher. When you applied for the job here, you told me your last employers had gone bust because they didn't have an upmarket clientele. I can understand why you wanted a job with us, because we do have a certain reputation, and I suppose we might well be considered a fitting partner for Holland and Butcher.'

‘I've only ever had your best interests at heart—'

‘Croxtons went bust in the spring. You of all people knew of the link between Croxtons and Holland and Butcher. Did you ask Holland and Butcher for a job when Croxtons failed?'

‘I asked around everywhere. There aren't that many good jobs around.'

‘So you did try Holland and Butcher? But they turned you down.'

‘They didn't have an opening at the time.'

‘So you heard about us, applied and were fortunate enough to be taken on. You've been in the business for years. You knew how much Holland and Butcher needed to tie in with a reputable employment agency. You saw – probably before anyone else did – that we could replace Croxtons. And you were right. Did you suggest it to Holland and Butcher, or wait for them to come to that conclusion themselves?'

‘I might have suggested it. But they were not interested.'

‘I'm surprised.'

‘They thought they could go it alone, that they didn't need to tie in with another agency, that their training was so good anyone would snap up their personnel.'

‘But over a period of time they realized they did need a guaranteed outlet for their staff. So you watched and waited . . . and made plans. You could see that one day Holland and Butcher were going to come knocking on my door. How could you ensure that, whatever happened, you would come out smelling of roses? Well, you could ensure that all the girls here owed their jobs to you. So you got rid of any older members of staff and recruited new ones whose loyalty was only to you.'

Ianthe's colour remained high. ‘I aim for maximum efficiency. You've only to look at our turnover to see how successful I've been.'

‘Which reminds me. How exactly have you managed to increase our turnover so quickly? Normally, the odd client or two drifts in as a result of word of mouth approval. But we seem to have acquired a lot of extra clients very quickly, and an equal number of not-always-satisfactory staff.'

‘When Croxtons went bust—'

‘You took the precaution of making copies of their client and staff lists? Ten minutes with a memory stick, and you had all the relevant information ready for reuse here?'

A shrug. ‘Standard practice.'

‘Those lists were the property of Croxtons. They could have sold out to another agency, and those lists would then have been a major part of their goodwill.'

Another shrug. ‘But they weren't.'

‘I don't like it. It's not the sort of behaviour I expect from my staff. Now, you've kept in touch with Holland and Butcher all this time, I take it?'

Hands twisted together. ‘Of course. I've known everyone there for years.'

Bea leaned back in her chair. ‘Mr Holland?'

‘That old stick? Huh.'

‘So it's young Mr Butcher who's your contact? The one aspiring to a seat in Parliament? If he's going into politics, how much time can he afford to give to Holland and Butcher nowadays? Was it his idea to run the firm without a tie-in with an agency? Yes, that was it, wasn't it? And now he's finally got round to us. Well, I don't mind talking to him about it. Some kind of partnership would suit me very well.'

Ianthe sniffed. ‘But you're going to retire, aren't you?'

Bea sat upright in her chair. ‘Ah. Now we're getting there. I don't believe that they want a partnership. I suspect they'd prefer total control. They'd like to buy me out.' She wondered if this whole mess had started when Max had met up with young Mr Butcher, who knew of the connection with the Abbot Agency . . . and Max had seized the idea and run with it because it would be to his advantage to get Bea to move away.

Ianthe's lips tightened. ‘It makes sense.'

‘You have a good job here, so what difference would it make to you if I sold out? Ah, I get it. You want security, and you like the feeling of power that managing the agency brings. You think they'll leave you in post if they buy me out?'

‘I am only safeguarding my interests and those of my girls. They'll be very happy to keep me on. I know their operation so well.'

Bea sighed. ‘So there it is. You realized some time ago that I wasn't ready to retire, so you began to sideline me, to make out I was losing my grip on the agency. But I'm a tough old bird and not easily phased out.'

Ianthe's eyes brimmed over. ‘I've no idea what you're talking about. I've merely tried to do my duty by you, and you are accusing me . . . Oh, this is dreadful.'