Chapter 16
Eve
‘It’s Canada Goose, actually,’ my Tryst date for the evening, Jay, says proudly, a bead of sweat glimmering on his forehead.
‘It’s also thirty degrees,’ I remind him.
‘Two birds, one stone.’ He leans back in his chair, and the resulting pungent waft from inside his coat suggests he hasn’t removed it all day. ‘Get myself nice and dehydrated before my session tomorrow and the definition will be mwah .’ He kisses the tips of his fingers. ‘Plus, what’s the point in spending a grand on a coat if you’re never going to wear it?’
I want to remind Jay that spending a fortune on a car wouldn’t mean he had to sit in it for the rest of his life, but I bite my tongue.
‘How old did you say you were again?’ he asks, slurping his cucumber water thirstily.
‘Thirty-three,’ I say. ‘It’s on my profile.’
‘You know how it is.’ He lets out a small belch. ‘You swipe past so many, you lose track.’
I nod. I can’t exactly disagree. ‘And you?’
‘Twenty-six.’ He catches sight of my face and laughs. ‘Don’t worry, I like an older woman. And hey,’ he leans forward, bringing his stench across the table with him, ‘it’s on my profile.’ He winks.
Jesus Christ. This might be a step too far, even for me. I check the time: 8.48 p.m. Jess will call in twelve minutes, and I’m definitely going to go for the dead dog. The self-obsession I can cope with — I seek it out, actually — but the smell, and the Canada Goose, and the cucumber burps... no. There’s such a thing as self-respect, and I need to get some.
‘Just going for a slash.’ Jay scrapes his chair back noisily and rustles his way across Deansgate’s latest ‘wellness bar’ to the bathroom, his coat brushing everyone he passes. People stare at me sadly.
A waitress appears and offers me a shot of turmeric juice, which I politely decline. I pull out my phone and go back onto Tryst. If I line another one up, I won’t be tempted to go home with Jay. I swipe quickly, only stopping on a few profiles to gather more information before making a decision.
Chris. 29. Mountain Rescue Volunteer; four miles away. Nice face, but kind eyes and too selfless. Left swipe.
Jonathan. 35. Sales Executive; six miles away. His bio says he’s looking for a ‘wifey for lifey’. Left swipe.
Adam. 34. Maths tutor; less than one mile away. Gibberish in his bio; something about a triangle and an axis. He looks cute in his photo: messy, curly hair, nice teeth, a huge smile that makes his eyes shine—
‘Back.’ Jay throws himself into his seat, making the reclaimed bamboo table shudder. I jump, and my fingers skitter across the phone as I scrabble to lock it. ‘Texting anuvva luvva?’ he drawls in a faux-Cockney accent.
My phone trills in my hand, and I answer it quickly, not even bothering to excuse myself.
Two minutes later, I’m pretend-crying over Boingy, the dead dog I’ve never owned, as Jay escorts me out of the door.
* * *
‘You know it’s nine thirty? On a Friday?’ Graham huffs as he swipes us into the building and strides over to the lifts. ‘We’ll probably be sacked.’
‘We won’t.’ I wave him away and stab the button for our floor. ‘I work ’til midnight sometimes.’
We ride up in silence, and I wonder when he’s going to ask.
‘I really don’t see why I couldn’t update the system on Monday for you. Is it that urgent?’ He leans against the doors and regards me steadily.
I mentally organise everything I learned from Google just ten minutes ago: the features I’d only have access to with the new Windows update.
‘I need to add new animations to my PowerPoint for the expo.’ I step out into the corridor as soon as the lift doors open. ‘Only available with the latest software, apparently.’
He grumbles behind me as we make our way across the room and into my office. I weave around my desk and stand by the window, positioning myself carefully. Graham lowers himself into my seat.
‘Do you need me to log on?’ I ask, crossing my fingers behind my back.
‘No.’ He taps his fingers on the desk as the machine boots itself up. ‘I need to log in as admin to make changes to the software.’
My stomach jumps with excitement.
I toyed with telling Graham my plans — he helped me get into Kirsty’s emails the other day, after all — but it would have been too risky. Even Graham has a moral compass, particularly when it comes to keeping his job.
‘Where have you been, anyway?’ he asks, turning around and looking me up and down.
‘On a date with a guy who wouldn’t take his coat off,’ I sigh, pulling out my phone nonchalantly.
‘In this heat?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I glance at the screen, but the computer is still turning itself on. ‘How was last night? Heather, was it?’
‘Hannah,’ he says, with an arched eyebrow that tells me he knows I knew. ‘It was good. We spent the day together today.’
‘Nice. Did I interrupt?’
‘Of course.’ The computer makes a noise, and he glances over his shoulder before turning back to me. ‘Your timing is always inconvenient.’
I pretend to bow. ‘Got a second date lined up, then?’
He smiles but doesn’t answer, holding my gaze for a second too long. Just as I’m about to look away, he swivels back round to face the screen. I shake myself, remembering why I’m here, and position myself behind his chair quickly, pretending to be interested in what he’s doing. The smell of him makes me dizzy.
‘OK...’ He types in the username and password with lightning speed. My desktop appears. I pocket my phone as he clicks around, going into settings and opening and closing the internet browser.
‘Right, that’ll take an hour or two, so probably best if you come back tomorrow.’ He leans back in the chair and raises his hands over his head, stretching.
‘Oh, it’s OK. I’ll wait. I’ve got my laptop so I can be doing some other stuff.’ I dig around in my bag.
He looks at me again, a slight crease between his eyebrows. In the dim security lighting, his blonde hair looks darker, and his eyes shine. For a second, I think he’s going to see through me, but then he sighs and stands up.
‘I don’t feel like going home yet.’ He slings his jacket over his arm. ‘Fancy a drink while you work? I can go and grab some beers from Londis.’
‘Sounds perfect.’ I feel the relief course through my body. Just ten minutes alone, it’s all I need.
‘Alright, back in a sec.’ He brushes past me, his thumb grazing against my arm, and walks out of the door. I watch as he goes into the lift and turns around, fixing me with that look again as the doors slide closed.
It takes me a second to ground myself, but once I do I’m quick, running out of my office and over to Kirsty’s desk. I pull out my phone and find the video I’ve just taken, the one of Graham entering the admin login details. I slow it down, pulling my finger across the play bar and following each stroke carefully. It takes me longer than I thought it would, but after six attempts, I’m in.
In the back of my mind, I know I could get Graham in a lot of trouble for this. If they investigated, they’d see that his details had logged onto Kirsty’s computer. But what choice do I have? If ruthless is the name of Kirsty’s game, I have to match her. Dev wouldn’t worry about things like this. Michael wouldn’t play fair.
I click through her folders, looking for the most boringly named ones to see what I can find. I keep searching, occasionally opening random folders and finding nothing but PowerPoints and Excel Spreadsheets. Then, just as I’m growing conscious of Graham coming back, I find a folder called ‘Tax Returns’.
My heart leaps. Unless Kirsty has a secret card-making business I’m not aware of, she doesn’t file her own taxes. I click into it.
There’s a single document inside, titled ‘F Ups’.
Frowning, I open it.
For a second, I’m not sure what I’m reading. It’s out of context, just paragraphs of text.
And then I notice my name.
Again and again.
It’s emails. Emails I’ve sent to Kirsty, dating back over the last two years.
. . . just realised I spelled ‘chrysanthemum’ wrong on the new Facebook click-through campaign...
. . . accidentally got accounts to set up the wrong supplier, and now they’ve paid almost 12k to a random woman in Bournemouth — managed to cover it so Dev shouldn’t find out...
. . . spent three hours this morning trying to get B every time I’ve fucked up, she’s copied and pasted it into a word document. For two years.
She’s creating a case against me.
I am suddenly blinded by white hot rage. I bring the cursor to the end of the twelve-page document and hit backspace, deleting everything, before saving and then putting the whole folder in the trash. I go back to her C: drive and open up her expo folder. She’s presenting, and there are three PowerPoints and four Word documents. I pull my keys out of my pocket and jam my USB stick into the side of the computer.
The lift whirrs behind me; Graham is coming back.
My heart beats in my throat; I’ve got to be quick. I drag the folders onto my flash drive and glance over my shoulder as the green bar creeps across the screen, loading everything onto the USB.
Come on, come on, come on.
The computer pings: complete.
I eject the drive quickly and stab the computer’s off button as the lift doors slide open. I throw myself onto the floor.
‘Eve?’ Graham walks over, four bottles of Corona dangling from his hand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Huh?’ I look up from under the desk, pushing my hair from my face. ‘Oh, I dropped my favourite pen here the other day, I was seeing if it had rolled between the desks.’
He glances over to my office, where my laptop is still in my bag. ‘How long have you been looking?’
I stand up and brush myself off. ‘Ugh, dusty. Erm, I was on the phone until a second ago.’
‘Right.’ His eyes flick across my face, searching.
‘Thanks for these.’ I take the beers from his hand. ‘Shall we go and see how far off this update is?’
I stride towards my office, but he doesn’t follow.
He’s staring at Kirsty’s desk, the blinking light of her computer as it shuts down suddenly bright in the dark room.