Chapter 11 （continued）
Conrí
I stared at the panes of frosted glass surrounding my office and tried to comprehend what Claire was telling me.
Over eighty percent of the staff.
Food poisoning.
The cleaners were refusing. The toilets were uninhabitable. The carpets—Claire’s voice had done something careful and controlled when she got to the carpets—were a write-off. Even the sinks, apparently, had not been spared.
Nasty. Dirty little—
“Mr Gallagher? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said. “Carry on.”
I kept my voice level. I was very good at keeping my voice level. It was one of my better qualities, and right now it was doing significant heavy lifting.
I reached for my mobile and opened Cuán’s thread while Claire continued—protocol, working from home implementation, the percentage of staff still functional, the estimated recovery window. I typed without looking down.
Me: Did you send any food to my offices yesterday or today?
“Recovery is estimated at one to two days for most cases,” Claire said. “Some may be looking at up to a week.”
A week.
My phone buzzed.
Cuán: Why would I feed your staff when I could be feeding my own? Freak
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Me: Use a full stop. Dick. Like this.
I put the phone face down on the desk and refocused.
“Who’s investigating the incident?”
“We’re liaising with facilities, security and reception. Anyone who had access to the kitchen area is being accounted for.”
I turned my chair slightly and looked out through the glass at the city below. Clean. Oblivious. Going about its business entirely unbothered by whatever had happened in my building.
A rival wasn’t out of the question. It would be a crude move—unsophisticated, the kind of thing designed to generate noise rather than do real damage—but crude moves still generated noise.
And noise meant press. And press meant a story that had nothing to do with Kilcullen Tech’s actual work and everything to do with the word excrement appearing in the same sentence as our name.
“Has HR been in touch with the public relations team?”
“Yes, Haley’s already across it.”
Good. Haley was thorough. If there was a narrative to manage she’d manage it before it had time to breathe.
“Alright.” I paused, an image of Claire’s hands covered in shit flashed unbidden across my mind, one I immediately dismissed.
“You have more than enough to deal with. But when you have a moment—can you forward me everything on the Dáire Financial Services project? Full file. I want to review it personally.”
A brief pause on the line.
“Of course. I’ll have the team member compile everything and send it across.”
“Thank you, Claire.”
I ended the call and sat back.
Kael was unusually quiet. He’d been quiet all morning, which usually meant he was paying attention to something I hadn’t noticed yet.
This food poisoning business had unnerved me. There was something so very wrong about it. My employees had been robbed of their dignity.
Sinister and vindictive.
Kael remained silent.
??
??
??
The project details came through from someone called Nika Horvat.
The name didn’t ring a bell. Junior, probably. One of the invisible ones who kept the work moving while the project leads took the credit and the client lunches. Claire had said she’d have a team member compile everything—this must be them.
I opened the attachments and started working through them.
The documentation was thorough. More thorough than I’d expected—clean, well structured, the kind of file that had been built carefully over time by someone who actually understood the system rather than someone summarising other people’s notes.
Anomalies flagged. Patterns tracked. Early amendments documented with enough context to understand not just what had been changed but why.
Whoever Nika Horvat was, they knew this project.
Then I got to the budget.
I stopped.
Went back.
Checked the figures again.
The budget had increased.
Twice.
I sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment, then back at the screen.
The Project Lead’s name was Andrew Dunhill. I checked the amendment sign-offs. Dunhill’s name was on both increases, both approved up the chain without, as far as I could see, adequate justification documented at either stage. The kind of creep that happened when nobody was watching closely enough.
Cuán’s board was going to have a field day.
I was going to have words with Andrew Dunhill’s senior.
I pulled up the email and typed a response to Nika Horvat—asked that he come to the conference room tomorrow morning, and to bring any other team members not currently impacted by the food poisoning incident.
I wanted eyes on this project and I wanted them tomorrow.
I hit send and reached for my coffee.
Kael stirred.
Just slightly. The way he did when something had caught his attention before I’d caught it myself.
I ignored him and kept reading.