The Girl Who Lived Twice

by Tina Clough

  “Have a look, it’s over there on the table. I haven’t even looked at it yet. I’m finishing Greg’s second lot first and then I’ll tackle Josh’s stuff.”

  Mia opened the two manila folders on the table; one was the Nicholson brief. She flicked through it casually and said to Lisa. “I’ll just do a quick copy of this, just in black and white. If they’re being sent out today I won’t get a chance to see a bound copy. It’s always nice to see the final product, when you’ve spent a lot of time working on it in the early stages.”

  “Go right ahead! And let me know if you need a hand with the binding of your own report – I’m sure I can fit it in later today.”

  Mia declined, saying that she would do it right now and left ten minutes later with a copy of Josh’s proposal at the bottom of her little pile of useless reports.

  The visit to the admin room had taken a bit longer than planned. Alice came to pick her up for coffee before she had time to read the proposal, so she tucked it into her top drawer and went upstairs for a coffee.

  Alice had had a most satisfying weekend; she started telling Mia all about it as they walked down the passage to the back stairs. “The wedding was lovely – everything was so pretty and the marquee wasn’t cold at all. They had those big heaters that look like jet engines, but they were hardly needed. The timing of that burst of summery weather was perfect. Callum met lots of my family, so that was good, and my mum thinks he’s just lovely. My dad never comments much on people, but he seemed to think he was OK too.”

  “Did he realise he was in for the full family inspection? Hope he wasn’t stricken with complete panic.”

  Alice giggled and replied with pretend nonchalance: “Well, we have progressed you know! We spend most of our time together now.”

  While they joined the queue at the coffee machine Mia reflected that the Callum involvement had certainly not happened in That Time and that could change everything. If it lasted Alice would not get involved with the Bad Man in This Time, which meant that she herself could stop worrying about trying to prevent the unhappy pregnancy.

  They found a table in a corner and Alice switched topics. “Now it’s your turn! Tell me who the new man is? Is it serious? What does he do? And how long have you known him?”

  “Heavens Alice, slow down! Well, his name is Thomas and he lives next-door to a friend of mine, so that’s how I know him. We’ve been spending a lot of time together and it’s beginning to look serious.” She felt her face break into a spontaneous smile.

  “How wonderful - this will change everything for you, I’m so pleased! It’s only a few weeks ago that you seemed really depressed and we were all really worried about you. You must have fallen in love all of a sudden. Isn’t it funny how that happens? A friend of mine had known a chap for ages and never thought of him in a romantic way and next thing there’s this great romance going on. She said it was just as if they looked at each other one day and realised!”

  “I know, isn’t it marvellous? I feel as if we’re made for each other, and he’s not been married before, no attachments or anything, so everything’s very simple.” Mia thought how lucky it was that she had avoided having to reveal that she had only just met Thomas. The more ordinary it seemed the better.

  “And where does he live and all the rest? I hope I’ll get to meet him some time?”

  “He lives alone in a house in Eden Terrace and he works for a firm of international legal advisors, but he’s really an accountant.”

  “Awesome! He’s a good catch then, not that it matters when you love someone. I’d be happy to go and live in a shack with Callum, so long as we were happy together.”

  Mia made a pretend aghast face. “Yeah, right! And you’d not complain about hand-washing nappies in a bucket of cold water I suppose?”

  She was joking, but Alice went bright pink and Mia had to backtrack. “Sorry, Alice, I didn’t mean to be rude. It was just a silly joke.”

  “I know – it’s just that we were talking about babies yesterday and it seemed so weird that you should bring it up just today. Not that we’re planning to have a baby or anything, but we were saying we both like kids and we both feel a big family is a great thing, at least three or four. Which counts as big these days.”

  “I think so too! I only have one sister, and when our parents died when we were teenagers, it seemed as if there was nothing left. The two of us somehow didn’t feel like a ‘family’. We were very close, and still are, but if there had been three or more of us it would have added a bit of emotional bulk and felt a bit more solid.”

  Going downstairs again Alice said she was looking forward to a closer view of Thomas soon. Mia didn’t know if it was wise, but she made a snap decision to warn Alice. “Well the first thing you’ll notice is that he has a great scar down one side of his face, so he looks quite different depending on which side you see – either quite dangerous or just kind and lovely – but inside he’s one hundred percent kind and lovely.”

  As soon as she was alone in her room she took the proposal out of the drawer and flicked through it. When she found the costing her heart skipped a beat. It was exactly as it had been in That Time - the expenses were low enough to make the financial viability look good instead of terrible. She quickly found the actual spreadsheet table in the appendix and there it was, the expenses were all there, but the totals did not include the top expense line. By now she knew the spreadsheet by heart and there was no need to check the detail. She scanned the text rapidly, but there was no mention of her comments or warnings.

  Grimly she shut the report. This was a proposal that any client would be delighted to accept. At least until someone sat down and added up the expenses by hand – too late.

  But what now? Since she had started planning how to protect herself in This Time she had processed many scenarios in her mind, but now that the time had actually come she felt apprehensive about the next step. She re-read the relevant parts of the proposal, checked her copy of the spreadsheet and then the email with the spreadsheet attached, which she had sent “by mistake” to that chap on the top floor. All the pieces she had so carefully prepared were in place and surely nothing could go wrong this time. The last thing she wanted was that Josh should come in for a chat before she had taken the matter to Alan – this must be addressed from the top – so she took her copy and went straight to Alan’s room. He was busy reading something and did not notice her coming in.

  Mia knocked gently on the doorframe. “Have you got a moment?” He looked up. “OK, provided it’s not going to take too long. I have to make some notes and a summary for this damn thing and we’ve got two client presentations due today and tomorrow.”

  Mia closed the door behind her. “Sorry Alan, I think this might take some time, but it’s serious. Before I start, please tell me if you’ve seen the Nicholson proposal?”

  “Yes, of course I’ve seen it – that’s one of the client meetings I mentioned. Looks good, doesn’t it? Josh might just make his name with this one.”

  “Who proofed it?”

  “Josh proofed it himself. I picked up a couple of minor errors and told him, and he fixed those. Why are you asking?”

  “The costing table has serious errors in it and because of that the proposal looks good. If those errors weren’t there you would never want to give the proposal to the clients – it’s extremely marginal and I’d call it high risk - more likely to go wrong than to scrape through.”

  Alan looked alarmed. “Mia, sit down please. We need to talk about this. You did that viability study yourself. When did you discover the errors?”

  “When I read the document just now – I picked up a copy in the binding room just out of curiosity – and straight away I realised the figures were wrong. I checked against the Excel file on the document drive, but that’s the same as what’s in the proposal: The column totals miss out the top row of expenses, so the grand total is wrong too. I knew I hadn’t handed the file over looking like that – and also all the
comments I had added are no longer there and they’re not mentioned in the text either.”

  She realised that she had been speaking practically without drawing breath, overcome by tension. She drew a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Alan was looking deeply disturbed. He thought for a moment before speaking. “Are you saying that someone deliberately tampered with the spreadsheet to make the proposal look as if it’s worth presenting?”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of. It’s not the kind of error that happens just by chance. It’s quite deliberate – all those cells where the ‘totals’ formula has been changed to omit the top row, it just can’t happen by accident. It could happen if someone changed one by mistake and then copied the formula to the other total cells, but the fact that the embedded comments have disappeared too? It’s too much to be a coincidence, Alan. I’m sorry, but however it’s happened the proposal simply can’t be presented to the clients.”

  “Do you have a printout of the original spreadsheet? Just to compare with?”

  Mia understood what he was trying to establish and had no issue with it – it would be her word against Josh’s and Alan needed to be sure of his facts. “I think I still have a copy of the original file on my personal drive, I usually keep things there. I sent it to Josh and he saved it on the shared drive. Come through to my office, where I’m logged on and I’ll show you.”

  They walked to Mia’s room in silence. Alan shut the door behind him and Mia sat down at her desk. She opened her personal folder and found the subfolder called “Projects”. “Yes, there it is – Nicholson.xls.” As she spoke she clicked the file open and scrolled down the spreadsheet. “See, the totals at the bottom of the columns are completely different and look at the end result. You can see all my comments.” Alan bent down beside her to study the sheet.

  “When I told Josh the spreadsheet was finished, I went to see him and I told him straight off that the project was doomed. He was furious and argued. He wanted me to change things so it looked better, but I told him to read the notes and look at the whole thing – hopeless from the start, far too risky. He was very angry with me. I said it wasn’t debatable and left him to it. I thought he’d calm down and accept it. Then I picked up the proposal in the binding room this morning, surprised it had got to that stage, and found this!”

  Alan was getting angry. “This is unbelievable! Think of the damage to the company – he must be mad to try a stunt like this! What sort of proof can you give me that this copy of the spreadsheet is exactly as it was when you gave to Josh?”

  Mia felt like a bad actress, but she had to go through the steps to establish proof. “I know this is what it looked like – we can check this file to see when it was last modified and then do the same with the file on the shared document drive. The shared one must have been changed later.” She found it and checked, with Alan watching as she proved her point; the shared file had been modified four days after the one on her own drive.

  Alan straightened up and reached across the desk for Mia’s phone. “I’m calling the CEO. Hi David, I have a serious issue here, which I need to discuss right away. If you’re free I would like to come up now. Thanks, I will. And I’m bringing Mia Dawson with me.”

  He turned to Mia. “Let’s go, he can see us now if we come straight away. I want you to log on as yourself on a computer in his office and show him the evidence. And bring that copy of the proposal, please.”

  They stood in the lift in silence. Mia had only been on the top floor a few times and had never set foot in the CEO’s office. His PA was expecting them and motioned for them to do straight in.

  “David, this is Mia, presume you’ve met? Good – we won’t waste any time. Mia came to me this morning with a very worrying story and she’s has just shown me proof that she has her facts right. If you don’t mind moving aside I’d like Mia to log on to your computer under her own name, so she can access her personal folders - meanwhile I’ll tell you the story.”

  David Wilson logged off, then stood up and motioned to Mia to take his place. He and Alan sat down at a round conference table by the window and Mia sat behind his desk. Alan gave a brief version of Mia’s story and described how they had checked the modification dates on the two computer files. Mia sat and listened and realised that the facts were brutally damning when told as a coherent story. Alan pointed out the discrepancies in the proposal document and opened the page in the appendix to show David the table of expenses. David reached over and took a calculator from his desk and checked the figures and then looked at Mia. “Let’s have a look at those two files.”

  Mia first showed him the file on the shared drive, and the date when it had last been changed, and then her own copy of the file with an earlier “last modified” date. She opened the spreadsheet and demonstrated the differences to David, explaining about the changed totals formula and the disappearance of the embedded comments.

  “Well, there’s no doubting that, is there? But as extra insurance I’ll ask IT to check who it was who last modified that file on the shared drive.”

  Alan was plainly amazed. “Can they tell?” Mia replied: “Oh, yes. They can tell whose log-on was used. That would prove it beyond any doubt. I can assure you it wasn’t me!”

  David was obviously keen to discuss the next step with Alan. “Thank you Mia, for being so observant! This would have been extremely embarrassing. It could have badly damaged our reputation. Heaven knows when it would have been discovered! And what did Josh think he would get out of it, eh? It’s a mad scheme. You can go now. Alan and I will ask Josh to come up and explain a few things and then I’ll take it from there – no need for you to worry about that. And please keep it all to yourself for now.”

  Alan nodded. “I’ll come and see you later.”

  Mia left in a state of disbelief at how fast things had moved. In her plans she had anticipated a drawn out process, maybe over days, but everything was happening with bewildering speed. To avoid having to meet Josh on his way upstairs she went down only to the second floor and dawdled away ten minutes in the staff room. Finally it seemed safe to assume that the risk was over and she took a cup of coffee down to her room. I can’t imagine settling down to work now, she thought, and I can’t go for lunch until Alan’s come back downstairs. It’s like being in limbo. She sipped her coffee and was wondered how to pass the time when Thomas rang.

  “How’s your day going?”

  “Very interesting, to say the least! I can’t wait to tell you all about it. You know that treachery drama I told you about, when I got shafted at work last year – well, about now, really? It exploded today.”

  “That’s a big event – is it going to plan?”

  “I don’t want to talk too much about it right now, but yes – going to plan so far. Actually, it’s moving with amazing speed. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”

  “That reminds me of what I was calling about! I’m taking clients out for dinner tomorrow night, would you like to come? They are a married couple and we never talk business over dinner. I take them out once or twice a year, because they are what we call key clients and I like to look after them really well. And they’re an entertaining couple to go out with.”

  “I’d love to - I haven’t been to a good restaurant in ages. I’ll see you after work.”

  She put the phone down and gazed unseeingly into the middle distance, deep in thought. I have this new life where I go out for dinner and meet new people, a real life with plans and a future. I am so lucky! And all the things I’m finding out about myself – that I can be proactive and assertive, and stronger than I thought I was. It makes me sad to think of another Mia perhaps still existing in That Time, depressed and lonely.

  The phone rang again. “Mia, can you please come back upstairs? Josh has been here - he is on suspension and has left for the time being. We’d like to talk to you again, if you’ve got time.”

  Mia made her way to the top floor by going to the foyer and up in the front lift. She want
ed to avoid any possibility of bumping into Josh. I’m not averse to facing him, but there might be a real risk of having my nose bloodied if I meet him just now – heaven knows how he’ll react. Alice’s desk was manned by her reliever, who paid no attention to her. She wondered how soon the rumours would start flying round the building. It was a bit nerve-wracking being an inside player at this level. She had no idea of what David and Alan might expect of her.

  Half an hour later she went back downstairs, better informed and with specific instructions of what to expect. Josh was formally under suspension for an act that would result in instant dismissal. There would be no further investigation – the facts and proof on hand were enough and Josh had been given two days to get legal advice and consider if he wanted to contest their evidence. The only thing they wanted from Mia was an assurance that she would not talk to anyone about it until the two days were up. She must also write a summary of the spreadsheet incident from start to finish for the files.

  “I’ll make a statement to staff once Josh has been dismissed.” David looked as if this was all in a day’s work, and perhaps it was. “After that you’re free to talk to people about the things you discovered, but only your own direct experiences, you can’t quote anything Alan and I have said.”

  Mia wrote her statement as soon as she was back at her desk. The sooner she did it the better – she wanted to put this behind her and look forward. What with her new level of involvement in a creative project and having made a good impression on the CEO her prospects looked good – it was pleasant to speculate on a different future and feel that a major hurdle had been overcome. But the main thing was that Josh could no longer harm her.

  The statement turned out to be far harder to word than she had anticipated. In the end she did it in bullet points in chronological order to avoid using any phrases or expressions that might sound like value judgements on her part. She printed the statement, dated and signed it and went to put it on Alan’s desk. He beamed at her, when she walked in. “Well done! You’ve saved the company a great deal of embarrassment and you made a good impression upstairs – David commented on your judgement and your focus. He wants me to bring your salary review forward - how about we do it next week instead of in December?”