Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

“You borrowed money from your company?” I ask skeptically. “Borrowed or took?”

Mike looks shocked. “Borrowed! God, Georgie, you’re as bad as David. Look, I haven’t been paying myself anywhere near what I should because I want the company to grow, so it’s my money that I borrowed anyway, it just makes it easier this way.”

“And you’re going to pay it back?”

“Of course! I’ve already started.”

“And David has evidence?”

“Yeah. And he’ll use it, too. But it’s not just me in trouble. David’s also trying to fabricate stuff.

If it comes out, he could lose his own job over this, but I don’t think he cares.”

David could lose his job? Now Mike’s got my full attention. I mean obviously Mike’s wrong—

David would never fabricate anything. But he does really hate Mike. Maybe I underestimated how much.

“Mike, can’t you just talk to him? Why don’t I talk to him?”

“It won’t do any good,” Mike says mournfully. “It’s gone too far. He’s got too many people involved. The only way is for the disk to go missing. Then he’ll just have to close the investigation.”

“Can’t you just tell them what you told me? No one would close your business down if you explained, would they?”

“I dunno. They’re all just suits. They don’t care if it’s not my fault. And they’re never going to believe me over David. Seriously, if I don’t get that disk back, I’m going to be in trouble. I need you to get hold of it, Georgie. I need you to get it back for me. Then David will just walk away from this. I’ll get my company back in order, and you and David can live happily ever after.

Otherwise . . .”

So now I know what the favor is. I have got to steal a disk from David. Mind you, it doesn’t look like I’ve got much of an option—I can’t have David throwing his career away over some stupid rivalry with Mike. Mike just isn’t worth it.

“Okay,” I say crisply. “Tell me what it looks like.”

“Like this.” Mike pulls out a fat-looking disk with red markings on it. It doesn’t look like a disk I’ve ever used before.

“It’s a Zip disk,” Mike says as if that explains the odd appearance.

“And you have no idea where it is?” It occurs to me that if the disk is at David’s office I’ve got no chance of getting hold of it. I’ve never been to his office and I don’t know if they’d even let me up.

“I don’t know for sure, but I know it’s in his flat, or in his briefcase, because I’ve got a friend at his firm and she says it definitely isn’t in his office.”

“You’ve got a friend at David’s firm? Mike, since when do you have accountants for friends?”

“She isn’t an accountant, at least she wasn’t when I knew her. She used to be quite high up in the police but she had to leave and now she works with David. Anyway, it’s no worse than he’s doing to me. I just know someone, that’s all, and she did me a favor. Okay?”

I take a deep breath. I need to think this through so I excuse myself and go to the bathroom. I don’t trust Mike, not really, but this is not the sort of story he would make up. And David was in Rome, which he never really explained properly. Could he really be risking so much just for me?

I want to enjoy the thought, but can’t. If Mike is right, David must have known exactly why I was in Rome. I just hope he can forgive me.

I hear Mike go out onto the terrace and decide to have a quick nose around his flat. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but before I start trying to find the disk that David has supposedly got, I want to know a bit more about Mike’s business affairs. I poke my head round the door to Mike’s bedroom. Like the other rooms in his apartment, it’s full of expensive furniture. There’s a huge big leather chair, for instance. And a cool-looking stereo. I can see why he had to borrow money from his company—this lot must have set him back thousands of pounds. Hundreds of thousands. There doesn’t seem to be much of interest in here though. Just a wardrobe full of expensive-looking clothes and two full-length mirrors. I take a look at myself, and wonder where the Georgie from Gucci has gone. My hair looks flat and my face is pale. Maybe I should take my mother’s advice and go to her Club for a few treatments.

Next, I duck quickly into Mike’s study. It’s got a huge desk in it with loads of bits sticking out for computers and keyboards and stuff. I sit down on the fake fur chair next to it and spin round.

There’s a neatly ordered pile of paper on one side of the desk. A pile of paper that I wouldn’t dream of going through. Unless . . . unless I accidentally knock them onto the floor and have to pick them up. I mean, that could happen, right? I quickly pick up the papers and crouch down on the floor.

It’s all pretty boring stuff really. Some bank statements, a plane ticket to Malaga . . . I didn’t know Mike was going there! That must be his fallback plan if things do go pear-shaped. And then I see a letter from David’s office. My heart starts beating loudly.

Dear Mr. Marshall,

Further to our recent communications, we have not received the information we requested on 2

Feb 2003. In order for us to complete our investigations and close our file on Big Base Records Ltd, we require the following information to be sent to our offices within 28 working days:

• Financial Accounts for the year ending 31 Dec 2002

• Profit and loss account for the year ending 31 Dec 2002

• Bank statements for BBR Ltd and any holding companies for the year ending 31 December 2002.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any queries.

Yours sincerely,

David Bradley

Partner

Oh my God. What is David getting himself into? I’m breathing quickly. It feels really weird looking at a letter that David has sent to Mike. This makes it all so real. There is no doubt in my mind: I’ve simply got to sort this out.

I finally get to the bathroom, and splash some water on my face. There’s too much information to take in. Dodgy business deals; Mike leaving me because he wasn’t good enough; David being in trouble. As I wash my hands my eyes alight on some Creme de la Mer by the basin. Evidently Mike’s feelings for me haven’t stopped him from entertaining girls with ?100 plus to spend on face cream, I think, smiling to myself. Then, checking that the door is locked, I help myself to a scoop. Mike’s hardly going to miss it.

Mike is sifting through his records when I get back to the sitting room.

“When shall I do it?”

“It’s got to be tomorrow,” Mike says without turning round. “I’ve got a meeting with my investors on Wednesday and I know this thing will blow up if you don’t get it by then.”

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I oversleep on Tuesday and don’t get to work till nine-thirty. Nigel is at his desk and I sidle past hoping he won’t notice the time. Denise is at her desk, back from a short break in Tenerife and she looks amazing, all tanned skin and highlighted hair. Not that this necessarily has anything to do with Tenerife; Denise sometimes comes into the office in the middle of winter looking like she’s just come back from the Caribbean, when all she’s done is gone to the hairdressers and applied some fake tan. Still, she looks pretty good.

I can’t do fake tan. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t tried; it’s just that it always goes streaky and ends up looking worse than my painfully white skin. I don’t go brown. I get freckles instead, and they never join up like my mother used to say they would when I was little. Once a boy told me that I looked like I’d been sunbathing with a sieve over my face and I never forgot it.