“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 them 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. “Come 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.



11