Stay Mad, Sweetheart

by Heleen Kist

  A flash of anger spread across my forehead. ‘No harm? That bastard leaked the photo that led to Emily being identified online and bullied to death.’ I jumped up. ‘All I want is justice for Emily. Why else would I be here?’ He frowned. I hit my fist into my other hand. ‘Somebody needs to get nailed for that. Yes, the trolling had been horrific.’ I pointed at his screen. ‘But it hadn’t been personal until Emily was identified from this shot.’

  ‘I’m sorry about Emily. I can’t imagine what she went through. And I can completely understand that you want to blame somebody.’ He reached for my shoulder, then changed his mind. ‘And yes, this guy jumped at the opportunity to show off his secret photo, knowing full well the Internet would blow up.’ Craig rolled his chair back and shook his head. ‘But I don’t think you’re going to get any closure on this, Laura. You can’t pin her death on him, even if we find him.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I know we don’t know each other well and forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn. I worry you will make yourself crazy trying to find the culprit. Maybe it’s time to find another way to deal with what happened?’

  The kindness in his voice chipped at my resolve. But I wasn’t done, I couldn’t be done. Every single action had led to another and collectively built into an avalanche that was too much for Emily to bear. I couldn’t let everyone get off like that.

  ‘I want you to give me the photos,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  He watched me for a moment, head cocked. Then he got up and rummaged through the drawer, pulling out a USB stick still in its packaging.

  ‘Technically I can’t give these to you. They belong to Pure Brilliant. The only other person who has the rights is Adam Mooney. Please don’t get me into trouble.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll take care of Pure Brilliant — and Adam Mooney.’

  Craig transferred the files and handed me the stick.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  He escorted me to the door. ‘I hope you get what you need. And if I can help you in any way, you know where to find me.’

  23

  SUKI

  Suki strode to work the next morning, skilfully avoiding the grooves between the city’s cobblestones. She ran her fingers over her eyebrows and tapped at the puffiness under her eyes. God, working with the West Coast could be a pain. She remembered the words ‘serious concerns’ in the middle-of-the-night emails from PeopleForce. They’d changed in tone, too. What if it all falls apart?

  She knew they’d be expecting instant answers, but she needed to play it cool. She’d chosen a strategic ‘out of office’ reply to buy a few hours to discuss matters with the Madainn partners. No harm done. She figured the Silicon Valley bros would still hear back in time for their company-sponsored healthy breakfast.

  She yawned. Why hadn’t her morning coffee kicked in yet?

  When she arrived at the Rutland Square office, the support staff were scuttling around like worker bees. Suki headed straight to Angus’s office and knocked. A deep grumble replied.

  The door handle had smears of pink cleaner between the brass grooves. She turned it with three carefully placed fingers.

  Diane’s bob peeked from over the back of the leather armchair. Noticeably blonder. Suki wondered how grey the hair underneath really was.

  ‘Good, you’re here too, Diane,’ Suki said. ‘I was hoping to have a word about Empisoft. Am I interrupting?’

  ‘Are we done?’ asked Angus, glancing at Diane tight-lipped.

  ‘Yes, for now,’ she replied icily.

  ‘Great,’ Suki said in the perkiest voice she could muster. She sat in the other armchair, her legs neatly crossed. ‘Empisoft shared their management accounts with PeopleForce yesterday and this has caused a bit of a... not sure what to call it... a ripple.’

  Angus’s eyes darkened and his forehead creased. She’d expected that: he didn’t like surprises. And even less surprises involving Americans, having had a giant deal explode in his face at the last minute last year. ‘Damned yanks,’ he’d cursed. But what did he expect? In corporate finance, nothing was certain until it was signed off. Although to be honest, any significant issues would normally be smoothed out well before the due diligence phase they were stuck in now.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Angus asked, rubbing his temple.

  ‘There’s been a slow decline in revenues in the last few months, which PeopleForce were aware of. However, Justin and I had talked a good game in terms of how this was a blip and nothing to be concerned about.’ Suki curled her toes inside her shoes. ‘But with another month showing a downward slope, they are understandably underwhelmed by this explanation.’ She cleared her throat. ‘My sense is they’re most concerned about the latest upgrade having lost its initial momentum, and there not being enough in the R&D pipeline.’

  ‘Do you think it’s a negotiating tactic or is there a reasonable basis for their concern?’ Diane asked, fingering her pearls nervously.

  ‘I suspect a bit of both,’ Suki said. ‘Given what we know about their chats with the competitor, I wouldn’t put it all down to bluster.’

  ‘I agree,’ Angus said, slapping the table. ‘We need to take this seriously. Worst case scenario? The deal falls through, which I’m not anticipating. However, there’s a possibility of losing valuation over this. I don’t need to remind you, Suki how important this deal is for the firm.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ And yet he always did.

  Suki sighed. If he’d just give her a minute... She prided herself on never bringing a problem to someone without at least one solution, no matter how half-baked. It was one of the tricks to maintain the appearance of authority she’d learnt in her classes on ‘Interpersonal Influence’— which her fellow MBA students cynically called ‘Manipulation 101’.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘The good news is they haven’t seen everything. The headline valuation of one hundred million was based on the work their corporate finance guys had done on the basis of the two research projects that are the most advanced. I’ve spent time with Laura Flett. Although she’s dragging her heels on completing the data room, she’s proving to be quite the innovator.’

  ‘Why is she dragging her heels?’ Diane turned her upper body towards Suki, clutching the arm rest of her chair with both hands. ‘Has she not sorted her personal problem out yet? Please tell me the company isn’t hiding anything and you only just found out.’

  Lay off, bitch.

  As if she’d be naive enough to have the wool pulled over her eyes — and by someone like Laura. She might not have been a financier as long as Diane, but Diane wasn’t a patch on her ability to read people.

  Suki locked her fingers and rested her tightly clasped hands on her lap. ‘No. Her best friend died. She’s distracted. I’m dealing with it.’ She took a breath and exhaled slowly. ‘What I was trying to say is that Laura developed a new tool that I think could be exceptionally exciting to PeopleForce, and bigger than the other two projects combined.’

  ‘Really?’ Angus perked up, never one to venture far from thoughts of money. ‘Could we get more for the company?’

  ‘I might,’ said Suki, using none of that ‘we’ shit. This was her deal and she would bring it home.

  ‘What’s the tool?’ asked Diane, relaxing back into her seat, her legs swept to one side.

  ‘It’s extremely clever, if she can pull it off. It’s untested but has huge potential. Rather than mapping where in a company people are feeling engaged, or stressed, or downright depressed, she’s working on a network-based analysis that can identify the people that are causing and amplifying those feelings the most.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Angus said. ‘Wasn’t the point of Empisoft to help coach managers of unhappy teams to improve their performance?’

  ‘Yes, the importance of management cannot be discounted. However — and this is where it gets interesting — their current software only scores people’s communications on a set of emotional indicators
at a particular time. Here, Laura’s looking at what — or more accurately who — could be causing changes in people’s emotions.’

  She waited, palms open.

  Angus blinked.

  Diane squirmed.

  Good God, people, still no? No wonder they’d hired her. What hope would those two have in making this firm have any kind of reputation in the city’s growing technology sector?

  An image she liked to use in her phone messages popped into her head: a large woman in a gospel choir robe rolling her eyes, arms to the heavens. The Lord is testing me.

  Suki gave a single clap. ‘Let me give you an example. If I were to complain about my boss — not that I would.’ She smiled jokingly at Angus. ‘And Frank in Accounting said to me “There, there, everything will be fine,” I’d probably leave happier than when I came. But if he said, “You’re right. That’s totally unreasonable,” I would be more resentful than before.’ Diane listened intently. ‘It doesn’t matter whether Frank himself is happy or not, it’s what he causes in other people. This software is trying to find the Franks, the colleagues you wouldn’t expect to have much influence, but who do. And if you could coach them — or get rid of them — you would have a healthier company.’

  Diane stroked the outline of her mouth with her index finger, a smidge of her trademark Allure by Chanel transferring, revealing the concentric circles of her fingerprint. ‘So, the opposite could be true also? That there might be someone that you wouldn’t recognise at first glance who could have a positive effect on employee engagement?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Suki nearly bounced in her seat. ‘You track all the communications inside the company and score how people’s moods are affected after engaging with someone. You take all that together, put it in a big model, and the next thing you know, it turns out there are a number of people in the organisation who have a positive effect. Either they reduce people’s negative feelings, or, better yet they amplify positivity. These are the ones you want to keep, the ones you should be giving pay rises to.’

  Angus shifted in his seat. ‘Okay. Let’s say Laura gets this to work. How do we use it to our advantage?’

  Suki lifted her thumb. ‘I’ll make new financial projections for PeopleForce to get them comfortable that there is growth in the company beyond what they’ve seen, to make up for some of the recent disappointing revenue numbers.’

  ‘Best to make it as look as rosy as you can,’ said Diane.

  ‘We can’t overdo it,’ Suki replied. ‘This new Network Impact tool hasn’t even been tested. Besides, what I can do depends a bit on where we are with the agreement. Angus, you’re still dealing with the existing shareholders... are they all lined up yet?’

  ‘No.’ He scratched the top of his forehead. ‘Two of the original high net-worth investors are complaining they will lose their tax relief because they won’t have held the shares for three years.’

  ‘Are you shitting me? How greedy can you get?’ Suki was all for lining your pockets whenever you could, but this was ridiculous. ‘They’re making over ten times their money!’

  Angus nodded. ‘I know. These guys hate paying taxes. They will already have claimed the relief two years ago. It will feel like losing money. What they’re asking is to extend the timeline by a few months so that it’s three full years and they can benefit from tax-free capital gains.’

  ‘If PeopleForce gets spooked by this, we’re left with nothing,’ Suki said. We can’t give into this.’ She squinted. ‘Did Pam not deal with these investors before on a similar matter? Can she advise on the best way forward?’

  She caught Diane glancing nervously at Angus. ‘What?’ Suki said.

  Diane straightened her back. ‘Pam isn’t with us anymore.’

  ‘Why?’ Suki asked.

  ‘She’s been under a lot of stress and decided she needed time off.’ Diane bit her lip. ‘She’s going travelling, I believe.’

  ‘A bit sudden, isn’t it?’

  Angus stood. ‘I’ll see if I can have another word with the shareholders. Is there anything else?’

  Suki shook her head, the signal she was dismissed well and truly received.

  Suki eavesdropped by the door for a few seconds, sadly not catching anything. Damn mahogany.

  She returned to her desk and scrolled among the contacts in her mobile.

  ‘Pam, hi. It’s Suki. I hear you’re no longer with us? I never got to say goodbye.’

  A breath. ‘I... I... needed a change. You know what it’s like. Once you set your mind on something, you want to get on with it.’

  ‘Come on, Pam. What’s the real scoop?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m going travelling.’

  ‘Bollocks.’ Suki cupped her hand around her mouth and the microphone. ‘Did you do something wrong?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. Leave it, Suki. I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Pam, we go back a long way and I know for a fact—’

  ‘I’ve signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement.’

  Suki groaned silently. She wouldn’t get any further, that was for sure. The partners had made sure something wouldn’t come to light. Whatever the hell that was.

  ‘Keep in touch, Pam,’ she said. ‘You were an amazing team assistant. We don’t seem to be very good at holding on to you guys.’

  ‘Yes, well... You might want to think why that is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry but I have to go.’

  Suki ended the call and stared into space. Could it be fraud? Some financial shenanigans? She wouldn’t put it past Angus. Those old-world, entitled men believed the laws weren’t written for them.

  She patted her mobile against her pursed lips and imagined all sorts of crimes.

  Diane’s creepy son Robert approached from the side, swaying side to side like a slithery snake. He perched his saggy bum on her desk. ‘Hey, Ping, if you’re looking for something nicer to press those lips against, I could make a suggestion.’

  ‘Bite me,’ she said, lifting her middle finger.

  What a fucking place.

  24

  ME

  ‘I’m going to hang up now,’ I said to Justin, while reaching inside my kitchen cupboard with my free hand, feeling for the new pack of tea bags. ‘I know I need to get the documentation done. No need to call at home.’

  I moved the phone away from my ear to hang up but still caught, ‘Time’s ticking on and PeopleForce are growing impatient, Laura.’

  Didn’t I know it. Suki called with the exact same message only ten minutes ago. It was as if they were ganging up on me. Them and Craig. His stern face had stayed in my head since my visit. Who was he to lecture me about letting go? It wasn’t his only friend who died. He never even knew Emily.

  I sighed; a bubble of air lingered at the back of my throat. Emily would’ve liked him... She would probably have called him a big teddy bear. I poured boiling water into my favourite green mug. The steam formed a moist circle around my chin that made me think of the cute white patch of fur around Scout’s mouth — then Craig’s stubble. I wiped the heat from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

  Was he the good guy he claimed to be? Why else would he spend all those hours trawling through images for me?

  I stirred the tea into the perfect amber-coloured cuppa and pulled out the bag. What would Craig have made of Emily?

  Through the open door, I peeked at the unpacked boxes of books in the living room — the ones I’d salvaged from Emily’s flat.

  I put the phone in the cutlery drawer and shoved it shut with my hip.

  No more distractions. It was time.

  The cardboard in the lower corner of the first box was scrunched from the weight of its content. I sat on the floorboards and crossed my legs. I pulled out Angela’s Ashes — a gift from me — and I swallowed, a lump in my throat. I remembered Emily turning her nose up at the weighty drab coloured tomes with abstract titles I brought her from time to time, only to gush after reading, ‘You have such
talent for finding the perfect book at the perfect time for me.’

  I dusted the dog-eared novels, releasing specs of Emily’s home into mine. If only I could have found a book to reassure her to hang tight when she was under attack, that it would all pass. I kicked at the box. I’d been a terrible friend. Why hadn’t I done more? Was it any surprise she hadn’t confided in me about the dildos — when all I’d done was berate her to stay off social media?

  I reached Emily’s romance novels and stacked them on top of each other; one bare chested man after another; the Fabios, Jamies and Patricks that made Emily’s heart swell, helped her to believe that someday she too would be swept away. I shook my head. That category didn’t feature in my bookcases. But I made room for them anyway, smiling as I carefully aligned the spines into a hunky line dance.

  I took one of the books to bed; read a few chapters of a story that promised blushes and thrills, and an obligatory love triangle — this one involving sexy twins. Some time later, my eyelids heavy, I lay with the paperback on my chest, feeling as close to Emily as I could ... which would never be close enough.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had peace and quiet. Proper peace and quiet; the productive kind. Perhaps getting up early wasn’t a bad habit to get into after all? Headphones on and for once undisturbed, I caught glimpses of colleagues arriving and settling in. By the time the row of desks in front of me was full, I’d been at my station for a solid hour and a half, a long row of code debugged.

  Sally appeared by my side, quietly calling my attention with her rocking hips.

  I looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I was hoping you could help me with one of my data sets,’ she said. ‘I think it might have been corrupted. It’s causing my algorithm to go loopy.’

  ‘Sure. But it’ll be at least an hour if that’s OK?’

  ‘No problem.’