Gemma Townley - When in Rome...

The moment I sit down I forget what my symptoms are, and end up apologizing and leaving, only to remember that I’m almost dying of food poisoning.

Luckily Guy’s secretary isn’t here today. His door is open and we enter in silence. So silently, in fact, that Guy doesn’t seem to have noticed that we’ve come in.

I clear my throat and he looks up from some papers on his desk. I scan the room quickly for any sign of the printouts or a pink flowery envelope, but can’t see either.

“Nigel, Georgie, thanks for coming up. We’ve got a slightly tricky situation on our hands.”

Nigel and I exchange glances as Guy gets up to shut the door of his office. He looks at us long and hard and says nothing for a minute or two. I can almost hear Nigel sweating.

“Okay. I need to know if I can trust the two of you to do some work for me.”

Nigel and I look at each other and both turn earnestly to Guy with “you can trust us” looks on our faces. Guy grimaces.

“Some information has come to me,” he continues. “Information about HG that could only have come from within HG. I need to find out if it’s genuine.”

“What information?” I ask, trying to sound as innocent as I can.

“Personnel records, stuff that we shouldn’t have.”

“Gosh!”

Nigel shoots daggers at me. I know what he’s thinking. Use the wordgosh and Guy will know we’re guilty. I mean, who says “gosh” these days? Mind you, Guy should be used to me saying stupid things by now, surely. But he doesn’t seem to have noticed, which is a relief.

“The thing is, it appears that HG has a track record of decimating all the companies they take over. They are telling us a very different story, according to the board, and I need to find out what the truth is.”

He pauses again, then looks up at us earnestly.

“Look, would you mind just digging around a bit? Find out anything you can about HG and previous mergers. I’ve got a board meeting on Friday, and if there’s anything I should know, I need to know it by then. Otherwise it could be too late. Okay?”

We both nod furiously and I mutter “Absolutely,” but it doesn’t come out loud enough because my throat is kind of caught, so I say it again and this time it comes out really loudly. Guy looks at me strangely.

“If this gets out now, it could jeopardize the future of the company, as well as our jobs,” he says slowly. “I need to know I can rely on your discretion.”

“Guy, you can depend on us. This won’t get out.” Nigel sounds amazingly calm, like an actor in a spy film or something. An actor with a really nasal London accent who sweats a lot.

Guy forces himself to smile as he stands up, but his forehead is creased in concentration.

Personally, I’m grinning ear to ear. We’re not fired! Not only does Guy not suspect us of giving him the information, but he’s putting his trust in us to find out what’s going on! We are truly employees of the month!

Nigel is also looking visibly relieved. “It worked!” he whispers as we wait for the lift. “He didn’t suspect a thing! And now we’ve got the go-ahead to do somereal research.”

“Real?” I say uncertainly. “You do mean legal, don’t you?”

“Sometimes you need to bend the law to get the information you need,” says Nigel and his eyes are glinting. I wonder if Guy quite realizes what he is getting us all into.

Back at my desk I try to work out if there’s any way I can talk David round without having to steal the disk from him. But each time I think I’ve found the right words, I realize that by admitting that I know all about it, I’ll be revealing that I’ve been seeing Mike, and I just can’t risk it. If David doesn’t know I went to Rome to meet Mike, imagine how he’ll react if he finds out what I’ve been up to! It’s no good—I’m going to have to go through with it.

My phone rings and I answer it to find Nigel on the other line. Even though his desk is about five feet away from mine.

“Um, Nigel, why are you calling me?”

“It’s quieter. Honestly, Georgie, you’re going to have to learn how to do this sort of work.

Right, I’m going to dig around HG some more and see what I can find.”

As he talks I can see him shoving everything on his desk to one side. That is so unlike Nigel—

he isn’t even labeling anything! I miss most of what he’s saying because I’m so preoccupied with his new approach to paperwork, but I tune back in to the conversation to hear him say

“What I want you to do is to find out more about Tryton. If they are involved in all the mergers, we need to know who they are—the people who run it, the investors, that kind of thing. Okay?”

I think it’s okay. I mean, it’s not the sort of research I usually do—it’s not just a case of ringing up some accountants or lawyers and asking their opinion on something—but it beats having to think about the Zip disk and Mike.

“Leave it with me,” I say in businesslike terms, and put the phone down purposefully. It feels good to have something proper to do. Something that is going to make a difference. I am Georgie Beauchamp, Private Investigator. It’s just me and Nigel against the world. Well, against a rather large accountancy publishing company anyway.

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Frankly, research isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, it’s exciting to start with, but then it turns into work and that’s pretty boring really. Tryton seem to be involved in everything from financing companies and buying them, to managing mergers and advising on acquisitions.

They’ve been involved in hundreds of companies in the past few years, including every publishing company HG has been associated with, and it’s making my brain ache tracking everything they’ve done.

I’ve written a list of the personnel on the new pad that I’ve just taken out of the stationery cupboard. I know I could easily type them onto a Word document, but having a notepad feels more gritty and exciting. Like I’m a reporter or something taking important notes. And to make it a bit more interesting, I’ve written each name in a different color, and assigned them each a Clue character—it’s a lot more fun that way. There’s a Duncan Taylor at the helm—he’s the chairman (Colonel Mustard, written in yellow). Then there’s a Graham Brightman, who’s chief executive (Professor Plum, written in purple), and Jane Larcombe, who’s the finance director (Miss Scarlet, written in red). I underline each name for good measure. For some reason, the name Duncan Taylor rings some sort of bell with me, but I can’t think why. I had a teacher at school called Duncan Mailor, so maybe that’s it.

To be honest, I’m pretty bored with all this. And even if the company is sold, or merged or whatever, it’s not exactly the end of the world. I’m sure I can get another job. Probably a better one. I halfheartedly dig around a bit more and find a whole load of boring information aimed at investors, which I print out. I don’t really understand it, but I’m sure Nigel will be impressed when I present it to him. Actually, this investigative work is pretty easy really. You just go to a Web site and copy stuff off it. I don’t know how much people are paid for this kind of work, but I’m sure it’s too much. Except for me, obviously.

I log on to Reuters and do a search under “Tryton.” To my surprise there’s loads of stuff, so I print all that, too. Then I do a search for HG and print a whole load more pages. I start feeling a lot better. I’m going to have a brilliantly huge pile of paper for Nigel to go through, I think as I happily watch pages spew onto the floor.