by Ashe Barker
“Maybe. If so, I’ll get it back. I’m a forensic auditor, remember. If that picture is on this machine, or has ever been here, I’ll find it.”
Tony watched in silence as Thea spent the next several minutes checking through Isabel’s recently altered files. She turned to him. “It’s here. Look.”
She clicked the mouse to bring the image up on the screen. “The file has a number, but no name. It was created yesterday, and last accessed at eight minutes past four yesterday afternoon. I assume that’s when she printed those flyers. Just before she left.”
“Yes. Scattering them around the cars in our car park as she went.”
“What’s going on? What are you doing in here? That’s my bag.”
They turned. Isabel was framed in the open doorway, her half-finished cup of take-out Costa coffee in her hand. She looked furious.
“You have some explaining to do, Isabel.” Tony didn’t raise his voice. Neither did he respond to the implied criticism from his PA. Thea admired his restraint. She could not have summoned such control if her life depended on it. A Dom thing, no doubt.
“Me? What about you two? Searching through my private things. You had no right…”
“I do hope you’re not about to start giving us a lecture on invasion of privacy, Isabel.”
“I don't have to talk to you at all. Either of you.”
“You do, if you want to carry on working here. I need a damn good explanation for this. And I need it now.”
“Are you threatening to fire me?”
“Tony, we should—” Thea tried to interject, even in this situation her sense of procedure coming to the fore. Tony was having none of it.
“Yes. You’ve five minutes to convince me otherwise.” His glare was implacable.
“So you’re taking her side then?” Isabel spat the words at him. Her glance at Thea was laced with contempt.
“I am. Every time.”
“You’ve only known her five minutes.”
“What does that have to do with you? With any of this?”
“She swans in here as though she owns the place, telling us all the things we’ve been doing wrong. Who does she think she is? Jumped up cow.”
“Isabel…” Thea couldn’t miss the warning note in his growl, but evidently this was not a tone he used much with his PA as she seemed oblivious to it.
“You used to listen to me. You valued my advice. Not any more. Not since her ladyship arrived. It was bad enough that she got you to reinstate that lazy slob Malone, but when I walk in and find the pair of you all over each other in the office. Well, that's too much. She needed teaching a lesson.”
“And you took it upon yourself to teach her? Is that how it was?”
“Someone had to.”
“So let me make sure I’m getting this. In order to ‘teach her a lesson’ you paid someone to follow Thea and me to a club, and take a compromising picture of us. Then you printed that picture and handed it out to everyone who works here. You even went over to the home of Thea’s other employer and treated him to a copy too.”
“I thought he should know what sort of a person he had working for him.”
“He knows what sort of person Thea is. So do I. So does everyone else here. She’s a consummate professional, brilliant at her job. Dart was lucky to get her. Kershaw’s too.”
“She’s a slag.”
There was a brief pause, then. “And you’re out of work. Leave now, Isabel.”
“I’m going nowhere.”
“Out. Now. Under your own steam, or with the help of security.” He picked up her bag and handed it to her.
“My phone?”
“Ah, right.” Tony still had it in his hand and turned it on. He navigated back to the picture and deleted it.
“You had no right to do that. That’s interfering with my property.”
“Just get out, Isabel. If you’re still in this room by the time I count to five, I’ll have security remove you from the premises.”
“You can’t just fire me. I have rights.”
“Two.”
“I’ll have you in front of a tribunal. I’ll—”
“Three.”
He nodded at Thea, which she took to be a signal to contact security. She picked up the phone on Isabel’s desk and dialled zero. Isabel remained rooted to the spot, her expression belligerent.
“Four.”
“Hello, Security? Could you send someone up to Mr diMarco’s office please? Immediately. Thank you.” Thea replaced the handset and turned to face her adversary again. Or she would have. Isabel was already scuttling out of the door, her bag clutched to her chest.
Tony strolled to the window. “If she’s not crossing the car park in twenty seconds I’ll have her found and ejected from the building.”
Thea went to stand next to him. They waited in silence, Thea counting in her head. She reached eighteen before the outer door opened, and together they watched Isabel Barnard hurtle from the front entrance and dash down the half dozen or so steps. She headed to her car and within a few seconds was roaring out of the gate.
“Will we see her again?”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“I can’t believe she was so jealous. Resentful. Of me. Is that what all this was about? Just that?”
“It seems like it.”
“I thought she liked me. We got on fine. Well, we did at first…” Thea was bemused suddenly, now that the crisis seemed to be over. Baffled at the bizarre attitude taken by the other woman. Talk about disproportionate.
“I had that impression too. She certainly seemed to like me. I’d thought we were close. Still… we now know who, and we know why up to a point though I agree with you, it all seems a bit off the wall. But we don’t know how.”
“What do you mean?”
“How did she know we’d be at the club that night? Shit, I didn't even know myself until that same afternoon.”
“Me neither. You told me after the managers’ meeting that afternoon. When we both stayed back in the conference room. No one else knew but us two.”
“So…”
Thea stood suddenly. “I have an idea. Where’s that guy from security?”
As though summoned by Thea’s words the man arrived at the entrance to the office suite. “Is there a problem here? You called security.”
“Yes. I need to look at some CCTV recordings. The corridor outside the conference room to be specific.”
“I see, miss. Is there any particular date you’re interested in?”
“Last Wednesday afternoon. Around three.”
Thirty minutes later Thea and Tony huddled around her computer viewing the security images which had been sent up from their archives.
“So you were right. Isabel hung around outside after everyone else left. She was eavesdropping.”
“Yes, it seems so.” Thea was pleased to have found the remaining part of the jigsaw, though she took little satisfaction from any of it.
“But why?”
“Curiosity perhaps. I suppose it’s fair to say that by this time she didn’t trust us. Either of us. She must have heard you mention The Wicked Club, and assuming she heard the rest of our conversation she’d have been able to work out what sort of place it was. My hunch is that the picture was a spur of the moment thing. Maybe she didn't actually intend to use it. But then we had that row a couple of days later, when she walked in on us in here. And she was so angry about Jeremy Malone. Maybe she just acted on the spur of the moment, out of temper.”
“Maybe. I guess we’ll never know. One thing I do know though.”
“What’s that?”
“I need a new PA. Can you recommend anyone?”
“Leave it with me.” Thea closed down the CCTV link and turned to face Tony again. “Sir?”
“Yes, Thea?”
“Do you think we’ve earned half a day off?”
“What do you have in mi
nd? A spot of shopping perhaps? Maybe we could take in a film.”
“I thought we might just go home.”
“Home, Mrs Richmond.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not two o’clock yet. On a weekday too.”
“I know that, Sir.”
“Are you angling for another spanking, Thea?”
“I am, Sir.”
“I could oblige you here. It would be no trouble.”
“I’d prefer to go home. If you don’t mind, Sir. We can be more—unrestrained there.”
“Unrestrained? Tell me, Thea—exactly who are you, and what have you done with Mrs Richmond? She would never have countenanced sneaking off for a spanking and a spot of unrestrained fucking on a Tuesday afternoon.”
Thea got to her feet with a smile and moved across the room to Tony’s desk, unbuttoning the top three buttons of her navy blue silk shirt as she went. She leaned over to whisper in his ear, ensuring he had an unimpeded view of her lace-adorned cleavage. “Mrs Richmond is a fine manager. I’m sure we both have the utmost respect for her. It’s true that she doesn’t do unrestrained very well but she’s working on it. And she’s a fast learner, Sir.” She kissed his neck. “Home?”
Tony grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. “I’ll drive.”
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