How to Slay at Work, page 7
It doesn’t exactly work, does it?
So anyway, I don’t see the news break. But Lissa does and messages me immediately, obviously in her trademark drip feed of information:
Jim Handley
Bludgeoned
Manhattan apartment
Yesterday morning
Morning as in NYC time
No witnesses
No suspects
Well officially at least
I take a sideways look at Freya. At my boss who may have spent yesterday morning beating the life out of a man in his Manhattan apartment.
I paint a neutral look on my face, but inside I’m screaming.
Holy fucking shit!
Is it all actually true?
I don’t go back to the office that morning. It’s Friday so I’m meant to. Even though I’ve arranged for a car to pick Freya up and take her to her apartment on Macklin Street in Covent Garden, where she will conduct a handful of meetings from her palatial home office, I’m still expected to be in the office and representing the team.
But I need a shower. I need to wash the city grime from my skin, wash away the feeling that I am complicit in all of this.
And Lissa and I need to discuss our strategy.
‘DKAs!’ I shout as I open the front door of the flat. DKAs – technically ‘Dominique’s Kouign Amann’ – are basically a caramelised croissant, with flaky layers and this crispy sweet crust and they are absolutely delicious. I made a little detour to Dominique Ansel’s bakery on Spring Street while I was running errands for Freya. I would’ve brought back the infamous cronuts but they only last a day and they’d have been ruined by now.
Lissa has also played hooky from work and the proper coffee machine is already in overdrive to accompany the DKAs. She’s also done a tonne of research already into Jim Handley and I spot a notepad next to her laptop covered in doodles and her extraordinarily messy scrawl she calls handwriting. I peer at it but can barely make out any of the words.
‘I’ll translate,’ she tells me as she places the coffee on the table and grabs a roll of kitchen paper to use as napkins. I hand her a DKA and she takes a huge bite. Her face breaks into a perfect picture of beatification, as if this is the true taste of heaven on her lips. ‘Holy fuck!’ she exclaims, her mouth still full. ‘That is the absolute tits.’
‘Told you,’ I reply. I take my own bite, relishing the sugary crunch of the edge.
We both finish eating in silence, neither wanting to start discussing murder and mayhem while we’re enjoying our pastries.
But eventually we’re done, crumbs wiped from mouths and swept from the pockmarked surface of the kitchen table Lissa picked up from a car boot sale last January. It had come from the home of someone with little kids who’d drawn all over it in felt tipped pens, the ink bleeding through the wood. Lissa varnished it, sealing in the kids’ scribbles forever. It looks cool. And very far removed from the functional yet artistically devoid kitchen area from our teens.
‘Shall I tell you about Mr Handley?’ Lissa says.
I nod as I sip my coffee.
‘Aged forty-three. Successful. Attractive.’ She turns her screen so I can see a picture of a tall man standing at the top of a mountain somewhere, the sun reflecting off the snow. He’s wearing a dark blue ski jacket, goggles and woollen hat in his hand, nonchalant smile on his face. His impeccably handsome face. This man wasn’t just ‘attractive’, he looks like a model.
‘What did he do?’ I ask, unable to drag my eyes away from the picture.
‘Plastic surgeon.’ She raises an eyebrow as she says it. ‘I think he might have been availing himself of the company discount. Let’s just say that ten years ago he was slightly less Ken-doll.’ She taps a couple of keys on her laptop to bring up another picture to show me.
‘It’s still him, but also, kind of not,’ I say as I squint at the screen. ‘The nose is different.’
‘And the jaw line,’ Lissa says. ‘And he’s definitely having botox.’
‘Hair replacement therapy?’ I ask, his hairline was receding slightly in the older picture but in the ski one he has a full head of thick glossy black hair.
‘I’d say,’ Lissa confirms. ‘He has gone to a lot of effort.’
‘Had,’ I correct her.
‘Oh yeah.’ The mood in the kitchen dips as we both realise that we aren’t talking about some guy who has his life ahead of him. We’re talking about a ghost. A dead man.
‘So he was a plastic surgeon. Was he married? Kids?’ I ask.
‘No kids. No wife. String of girlfriends. And a pretty explicit profile on Grindr.’ She motions downwards in case I wasn’t aware that the explicit profile included some intimate photography.
‘So he was bi?’
‘Guess so,’ Lissa shrugs. She’s never felt the need to categorise things, to put people into boxes based on who they want to sleep with. ‘It’s weird how people get so obsessed about other people’s sex lives,’ she told me once. ‘Like, what kind of perverts are they?’
‘What else?’ I ask.
‘He had an apartment in Manhattan, close to everything, all the nightlife and restaurants and stuff. Liked to spend his summers in the Hamptons and his winters in Aspen. Went to the gym five times a week, seeing a personal trainer at least twice. Bought his suits from Cad & The Dandy, his watch from Patek Philippe, and his girlfriends’ necklaces from Tiffany on their birthdays. Didn’t smoke, drank Parkers Heritage Bourbon, ate quinoa in the week and steak on the weekends.’
‘So he was basically a walking cliché?’
‘Yep. On paper at least,’ she adds. ‘I mean, who knows what else he was doing that he didn’t put on his social media or his CV?’
‘You said he was bludgeoned?’ I grimace a little, bludgeoned is such a visceral word.
‘Yep. Blunt force trauma. In his apartment. He’d been to the gym that morning, gone home to shower and get ready for work. The time of death is estimated at between 9 and 11 a.m. local time.’
‘Exactly when Freya had me pretending to be her.’
‘She what?’ Lissa’s voice echoes around the kitchen.
‘She had me pick up something personal, told me to say I was her so they wouldn’t worry about giving it to me.’
‘You created her alibi.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Fuck! Fuck!’ Lissa says.
‘Hey, calm down. It’s not—’
‘She’s made you an accomplice,’ Lissa interrupts me, her eyes flashing. ‘You have suspicions and you’ve covered up for her. You could be considered an accessory!’
‘Of course I couldn’t. I’m just an innocent employee running errands for her boss.’
‘Who you think is a killer and yet you haven’t gone to the police.’ She sounds matter of fact. Laying out the truth I’ve not wanted to see. But I can’t avoid staring straight at it now. I am meant to be the one who catastrophises and blows things out of all proportion. If Lissa is doing it then it must be serious.
‘So what do we do?’
‘We need to be careful. Make sure there can never be any question of your suspicions. If anyone finds out you even thought for a moment she was a killer, you could be in trouble. This has to stay just between us, OK?’
‘Who else exactly did you think I was going to tell?’
‘You can’t go to the police. Not now. That ship has sailed, Millie.’
She stares at me, her eyes wide and pleading over the table. She’s right. I’m stuck.
My boss might be a killer and I’m powerless to do anything about it.
‘So what next?’ I ask, my voice small in the kitchen.
‘Well…’ I can see from her expression that all this is challenging her mental capacities, her brain whirring as she tries to think of something.
‘Rock. Hard place.’ I tell her.
‘Don’t be defeatist, Millicent.’ She mimics our house manager, who was stern and serious and who we were both absolutely petrified of when we were fifteen.
I pull a face and fake a shiver. Well, it’s a fake now, but for years after we left the home I would twitch involuntarily every time I even thought of the old bitch. It took a lot of therapy to get over it. Which is kind of ironic seeing as she was in charge of our “pastoral care”.
‘I’ve got it!’ Lissa exclaims. ‘A three-stage process.’ She looks excited, like she’s found a new game and is itching to play it. The problem is that when she gets like this, it’s normally me who ends up being the loser in the game. ‘First stage: you need proof. Absolute, irrefutable proof. This is all nonsense if it does turn out to be a coincidence.’
‘Fair enough. So, I get the proof. Then what?’
‘Well, in the meantime, we get cleaning. Make sure that there is no possible way for you to be accused of being an accessory or an accomplice.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we lay a trap. One that will expose her as the villain she is, while…’ She pauses for a moment, eyes sparkling, ‘while you come out as the greatest employee of all time. One who is guaranteed that promotion to the fancy LA office.’
‘So she ends up in prison and I skip off into a wondrous sunset.’
‘Exactly.’ She looks proud of herself. As well she might.
‘You are a fucking genius, Lissa Readman.’
‘Yes, I am.’
We’re still sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and feeling rather smug about Lissa’s three stage plan, when my phone lets out a loud beep.
I pick it up and stare at the number.
‘Who is it?’ Lissa asks.
‘That same number as before,’ I reply, tapping the screen to bring up the picture message. It’s the same as the others, block capitals in black ink on plain white paper. ‘I guess you just went to New York,’ I read to Lissa. ‘Be careful.’ The last two words are underlined three times, the thick lines almost tearing through the paper.
I turn my phone to show Lissa and she visibly pales in front of me. Neither of us feels quite so smug about our silly little plan any more.
10
On Monday I’m in the office by five thirty – yes, in the morning – and it’s only just getting light. I don’t think I’ve ever got in this early before, the coffee shop I pass en route to the tube station was only just opening.
By the time Freya comes in, I’ve done almost every task on my To Do list. It’s amazing how productive I can be when I’m focused. But my self-satisfaction doesn’t last very long.
‘Expense reports,’ she says, not bothering with any pre-amble. No ‘Oh how was your weekend’ or ‘That blouse is a good colour on you’. I mean, not that I expected her to, but I just want to make sure you understand what I have to deal with on a daily basis. And, of course, why I’m so quick to believe she really is a psychopathic man-killer.
‘Expense reports?’ I reply, confused as to what she’s actually asking for. Or demanding at least.
‘They’re due by close of play,’ Freya replies, as if that is a full explanation.
‘Right,’ I say to her back as she walks towards her office.
Guess who used to do the expense reports? Yes, of course it was Sam. I really need her advice; I know they go to Corporate and I really cannot afford to screw them up. So I try to call her but all I get is a message: the number you have called has not been recognised. I try a WhatsApp message but that fails to even send.
It feels like an invasion of her privacy, but I’m desperate and so I pull up Twitter so I can DM her. But her Twitter profile @Sammy_Mulligan no longer exists. That’s weird. Who the hell deletes their Twitter profile? I know we all threatened to when Elon Musk took over and fucked it all, but no one actually did. I check Instagram and it’s the same story. She didn’t use Facebook – we’re not in our 40s – and had never got into either TikTok – who has the time to make videos? – or LinkedIn – no, I don’t care that you found an apparently fascinating article about corporate leveraging.
There is one final place to look. And it makes me feel oddly icky, like this is the ultimate invasion of privacy. I open Catfished, a website that allows you to find someone’s profile on dating sites. It’s super useful for vetting the guy you think might be a catch but who might also turn out to be running multiple apps and searching for dodgy hook-ups on niche sites. I type Sammy M into the search bar as that’s the name she tended to use. Hundreds of Bumble and Tinder profiles appear in the results. It seems Sammy M is the kind of name that is popular with students looking for sugar daddies. Who knew. But as I scroll down the list, I don’t recognise any of them. It looks like Sam has deleted her profile from all the dating apps too.
It’s like she’s disappeared. Dropped off the face of the Earth.
Where is she?
Without Sam’s help I need to find someone else to show me what I’m meant to do with the expense reports. Luckily, Kieran is a creature of habit and so I know exactly where he’ll be at 9.55 a.m.
‘Millicent!’ There’s far too much joviality in his voice this morning. Perhaps it’s the bucket of coffee he’s holding in one hand, taking alternate sips of caffeine and drags on the cigarette burning between his fingers.
‘My favourite HR person,’ I say. He smiles at the moniker.
‘I guess you need a favour? Another one.’ His eyes twinkle as he speaks.
‘I need to do the expense reports. Sam used to do them and I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve tried to message her to at least ask where I should start but she’s completely AWOL.’
‘You still can’t find her?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ve tried calling and messaging and then…’ I drop my voice. ‘This is odd. All her social media’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yep. Just, poof. Vanished. Gone!’
‘All of them?’
‘Yep,’ I confirm. ‘I mean, that’s odd, right?’
‘Very.’ His brow furrows and he looks almost pained.
‘What is it?’ I ask, a touch of concern in my voice.
‘It’s just… you don’t think something’s happened to her?’
‘Like what?’ But dread claws at my stomach.
‘I don’t know.’ Then he smiles at me. ‘Gosh, listen to me! What an idiot!’ He laughs, but it sounds hollow, almost forced. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’
But the seed is well and truly planted and I’m not convinced.
‘Tell you what,’ he says, grinding out the cigarette and yeeting the coffee bucket into the bin, ‘how about I show you how to run the reports?’
‘Would you?’
‘Of course.’
I won’t go into detail about the reports, but rest assured they were as boring and time consuming and absolutely soul destroying as you’re imagining them to be.
Although Kieran does try to make them seem less dull and less complicated, pulling a chair close to mine at my desk so we can both see the screen. He smells of pine and musk – obviously some kind of cologne – but with a hint of grapefruit underneath.
‘Does all that make sense?’ he asks me after about an hour of his teaching.
‘Yep,’ I reply. Even though I’m not sure all of it has gone in. But at least now I have a vague idea and I’m sure I can fill in the gaps.
‘Promise? It’s just I need to be getting back to my desk. And I don’t think I want to be here when Freya returns.’
‘Absolutely. I’m fine. Thank you,’ I tell him.
‘Anytime. For you, anyway.’ He blushes a little.
‘I see there is a lot of work going on.’ Freya’s voice cuts through our gentle flirting.
‘Good afternoon, Ms Ellwood-Winter,’ he says as he gets up and walks away.
She really is an absolute buzzkill.
An hour later and I pop out to grab some lunch. Just a prawn sandwich mind, nothing fancy. After lunch – which I obviously eat at my desk because these fucking expense reports aren’t going to do themselves – Freya returns from her meetings.
‘Haven’t you finished them yet?’ she asks, folding her soaking wet umbrella and hanging it on the coat rack where it drips into my trainers I wear for my commute.
‘I just have a couple of queries for you,’ I reply.
She pauses in front of me. ‘Well, go on then.’
‘Right, well… there isn’t a charge for dinner in New York.’
‘Marcos paid. Next.’
‘Um. How did you get from the restaurant back to the hotel?’
‘Taxi.’ She says it like it’s so obvious. Like how else would she possibly have travelled.
‘But there isn’t a charge for one.’
‘It must be a mistake.’
‘I reconciled the company credit card.’
‘I must have paid cash,’ she says, then shrugs.
‘Do you have a receipt?’ I’m really trying to sound level and non-confrontational and like this is all entirely reasonable. I mean, it is entirely reasonable.
‘I don’t know, Camille. I really don’t have time for this.’
‘It’s just, if you paid cash and there isn’t a receipt then I can’t get a reimbursement for you.’ I wince inside as she turns to stare at me.
‘Whatever, Camille. It was probably fifty dollars.’ She makes a motion like fifty dollars is nothing. Oh to be that dismissive of enough money to pay my phone bill for the month. ‘Anything else?’
‘You’re sure it was cash?’
‘Yes! Jesus, Camille. Who gives a shit?’
It might seem like nothing but Freya Ellwood-Winter just lied to my face. I know for a fact she didn’t pay cash for a taxi from the restaurant to the hotel. She used a pre-paid dollar denominated Mastercard. Given the way she uses me like her very own PA, she’s given me access to her work email account. The other day I saw an email message pop up that I thought was weird. So I went digging a little more and found she had this pre-paid card with surprisingly lax security and a password I was able to guess on the second try. The charge was clear, and it was for a lot more than fifty dollars. She didn’t go straight to the hotel: the fare was almost one hundred and ten dollars. She took a significant detour.
