Unable to think of what else to do and loathe to let an opportunity to snoop pass her by, she gently started to look through the stacks of paper, trying not to disturb anything. She lifted a pile of marketing reports she’d searched through twice before. This time, though, something was different. Nestled underneath them she found a small plastic object about the length of her finger and the width of two. She picked it up. It hadn’t been there last time she’d looked. She could have sworn the papers were in the same position.
She recognised it instantly. It was a USB key, used for storing and transporting data from one computer to another. When she flipped it over in her palm, the label made her freeze in shock. “Gamingsecrets Blog” was written in purple pen. Gamingsecrets was the blog where the Sunberri secrets had first appeared. Paul had told her all about it.
Corbin’s desk phone began to ring, jolting Zani into action. Her time was rapidly running out. She glanced at the phone, curious that the call had come in on the direct line. The name Pixie showed on the caller id panel. Pixie?
Tucking the USB key in her pocket, she nipped back to her desk and sat, exuding innocence, when Corbin reappeared balancing two cups of coffee.
“I think I got it right.” He handed her a cup and turned away, toward his office.
“Yeah, thanks,” she snapped.
He stopped still, then turned slowly to face her. Zani gulped and dug her fingernails firmly into the high moral ground.
“Do you want to leave now?” he asked, raising both eyebrows. He wasn’t nearly so attractive when he was being belligerent.
Crap. She’d pushed him too far. She had only one option left. Pausing to whip off her glasses, she buried her face in her hands and burst into heartbroken tears. “I’m sorry, it’s just so awful,” she sobbed. “I’m terrified you think I’m some sort of common slut and I’m here to chase you around the desk. You know what they say about women my age, desperate and dateless.” She risked a quick glance at Corbin. Happily, he looked suitably panic stricken. “It’s not that I even want to get married or have babies or anything, but imagine if that’s what you thought.”
“Babies?” he yelped, and then there was a pause. “I can assure you I didn’t think that,” he said soothingly. Hoping she was suitably tear-stained, she looked up at him. He waved a white handkerchief at her, as if surrendering.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the handkerchief, blowing her nose loudly on it and handing it back. He gingerly tucked it into his pocket.
“Will you be all right?” he asked tentatively, watching her closely, as if she were an unexploded World War Two bomb he’d unearthed at the bottom of his garden.
Zani let her bottom lip tremble and sniffed. “I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I called you an idiot. I was just so upset.”
“Look, no problem, I deserved it, it was all my fault.” He backed toward his office, glancing over his shoulder at the sanctuary and narrowly missing the beige office’s sad, dusty potted plant.
“See you later.”
As the door closed she couldn’t help a victorious grin. The man was so terrified he wouldn’t be kicking her out of the office anytime soon.
A quick trip to the Ladies to repair her makeup took her past Paul’s office. His PA called to her as she slowly returned.
“Had a better morning? I would’ve popped in, but I’ve been flat out.”
“It’s okay,” said Zani, hovering in the hallway and nervously eyeing Paul’s closed office door. He’d have a cow if he saw her.
“I saw Phil from IT in your office. Can I give you some advice?” The woman beckoned Zani in, and she reluctantly took a few steps closer.
“Sure.” She’d never met Paul’s PA before and examined her with interest: dyed blonde hair with dark roots, scraped up in a bouffant hairsprayed bun, heavy makeup, and pink shiny lipstick. Essex girl. The blue eyeliner gave it away.
“Don’t ever sit at your desk if he needs to get under it to fix your computer, and don’t, whatever you do, go down to his office alone,” she said, widening blue mascara eyes and giving Zani a “we girls have seen it all before” smile.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks,” said Zani a little vaguely. She wasn’t really listening. With a start of alarm she’d noticed that Paul’s PA wrote with a purple pen.
“We haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Zani,” she said, praying the woman wasn’t going to say Pixie. Though it’d make sense if Corbin’s girlfriend was involved in the leaks, and he was probably unclassy enough to be shagging the help.
“Marion, and please no Robin Hood jokes.”
“Huh?” Uncomfortably relieved, Zani smiled at her. Robin Hood? Marion was an odd shape, and Zani realised her voluminous pale pink top covered a very pregnant belly. Clearly at least one merry man was involved.
“You know. Maid Marion from Robin Hood? That’s what he calls me—” she jerked her head toward Paul’s closed door. “His maid Marion.”
Zani was horrified, but seeing Marion’s smile she kept silent. Apparently she thought it was vastly amusing.
Paul’s voice could be heard from his office, and the door handle turned. Desperate to avoid her brother, Zani decided she’d stayed chatting for long enough.
“I need to get back. See you later.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried out. She dismissed Marion from her list of suspects. The colour of a pen was too tenuous a link to the writing on the USB key, and frankly, Marion just didn’t seem the industrial espionage type.
The clock slowly dragged itself toward one p.m. With a sigh of relief, Zani escaped the office for an hour of freedom. She stepped out of the warm building, gasping at the cold and hugging her long black coat around herself. The temperature couldn’t be much above freezing.
She spent her lunchtime drifting through Marks & Spencer. Worried about her father’s predicament and concerned about the contract with Vladimir Klebnikoff, she wandered into the lingerie department. Scanning the racks, she quickly decided that that the only thing that would make her feel better was the coffee coloured confection of silk and lace that hung there. She never bought that kind of thing. Unable to see any good reason. Cotton let the skin breathe and didn’t have scratchy lace. It was the only logical choice.
Blaming the grey, depressing weather and the stress that had unexpectedly arrived in her life, Zani carried the matching wisps of bra and knickers to the checkout desk. She had to assume an “I pay this price for underwear every day” expression when the girl read out the total, and after she’d paid she walked away quickly with her carrier bag, as if fleeing the scene of the crime.
She checked her watch. Still forty-one minutes of freedom, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it. Feeling virtuous, she grabbed a trolley and steered it around the food hall, grinding her teeth as young mums juggling kids tiredly got in her way. She’d always thought she was a prime candidate for trolley rage, unashamedly wanting to ram anyone who crossed her path or dawdled too long in the chocolate biscuit aisle. As a result she usually restricted her shopping forays to late at night, when children and old aged pensioners were tucked safely in bed, when the aisles were deserted and a haggard looking shop assistant manned the only open register and gazed mournfully at the clock.
Still, at least she’d have food to eat that night, she thought virtuously as she joined a long queue, and idly wondered why the woman in front of her needed eight bottles of Diet Coke, a large tub of ice cream and a packet of dried spaghetti. Fang would be happy as well, with one of each flavour of gourmet dog tins to choose from. Beef with cheesy vegetables or perhaps Chicken Mornay this evening, to make up for having to spend the day at home alone.
She wheeled her shopping to her car, tucked away in a side street, but near enough to the mall so that she didn’t look like she was absconding with the trolley. A tall man in a long dark coat caught her attention as she heaved the plastic bags into the boot. He stared at her just a little too intently when he walked past, and she instinctively glanced up and down the footpath,
looking for another person. A woman with two small children in a pram appeared around the corner and Zani relaxed. She guiltily abandoned the trolley under a desolate tree struggling to live in a small square of gravel in the pavement. It’ll give the trolley-picker-upper men something interesting to find.
Considerably poorer, but with her equanimity a little restored, Zani arrived back at Edes House. Not much had changed. Corbin was still hiding in his office and there was still nothing to do except answer the phone and surf the Internet.
There had, however, been three emails from Phil. Two wondering when she was going to come and visit him and one rather nasty joke involving blondes and breast implants. Zani didn’t get it and was rather glad. She wondered why Phil was so keen to get her into his office.
She sighed in relief when Corbin appeared about twenty minutes later. Finally something interesting. He’d loosened his tie, and the top button of his pale blue business shirt was undone.
“Could you get me some lunch?” He handed her a £10 note and retreated back into his office.
“Okay,” she said snippily and pulled a face at his back.
He was no more forthcoming when, ten minutes later, she knocked on his door and put a sandwich, drink and his change on his desk.
“Your lunch.” She didn’t add that she’d battled with herself over getting him some indigestible concoction such as egg and onion. The thought of a gaseous Corbin de Villiers had been too much. She’d erred on the side of tuna.
“Thanks.” He didn’t even look up from what he read.
Miffed, Zani retreated.
She sat and stared at her computer screen for a minute, fingering the USB key again. No, it was too risky to try to open here. What if she got caught? She’d have to wait until later. Opening the Internet browser, she googled “Pixie” and “Corbin de Villiers”. Purely for background research, and not because she had any interest whatsoever. The first dozen of 82,300 links came up on the screen. Almost dizzy with apprehension, Zani clicked on the top of the list.
Immediately, there on the screen was a picture of a tall, leggy blonde wrapped around Corbin. “Corbin enjoys ‘late’ night with Pixie,” read the caption. “Business tycoon Corbin de Villiers enjoyed a late night fling with Pixie Woodward, heir to the Woodward racing fortune…”
Zani didn’t want to read further. Everything was clear. Sitting back in her chair, she closed the browser. A sick disappointed feeling made her fold her arms and stare out the window. Corbin had a girlfriend. Not just a girlfriend. Corbin had an heiress. No wonder he took his kiss back.
The thought of the night before made her cringe with embarrassment. Clearly he’d kissed her as some sort of pity-kiss, probably because she’d blabbed on about her mother’s death and he felt sorry for her. She’d learnt her lesson. It was for this reason she should stick to men like the clammy Sebastian. She knew where she stood and there was no risk of looking like some sort of desperate fool.
An email from Phil popped up on her screen.
Her finger hovered over the delete key, and she sighed. Sick and tired of sitting doing nothing and unwilling to keep stewing over Corbin, it was time to take matters into her own hands. Time to go and corner Phil the IT Guy in his lair, find who was behind the leaks and get the hell out of Sunberri.
The IT department was situated in the basement of the building. The lift, after slowly lowering itself down the three floors, opened its door and Zani picked her way along an airless corridor, narrowed by piles of redundant computer equipment. The place was a rabbit warren, and there wasn’t a soul to be seen. She passed darkened windowless offices, each stacked higher with electronics than the last. Some equipment was humming and blinking lights, but most just sat, gathering dust.
She heard the sound of water running and Phil emerged from the men’s bathroom.
“Zani! Babe. I thought I wouldn’t see you down here.” He stood a little too close, and Zani remembered Marion’s warning.
“Well, I thought I should know my way around,” she said with a forced laugh. “Is there anyone else down here?”
“Nope, just me. I’ve got a couple of PFYs that support me, but they’re not in today. Star Wars convention at Crystal Palace.”
“PFYs?”
“Pimply-Faced Youths, the industry term for moody young men who don’t have girlfriends and are worryingly attached to their computers. Come into my office, I’ll show you where it all happens.”
With some trepidation Zani followed him down the corridor. The farther they got from the lift the more nervous she became. Remembering Marion’s warning, she kept an eye out for something she could use as a weapon, just in case. She checked her pocket for her car keys. She’d seen a documentary on self-defence and car keys could be surprisingly good for eye gouging. In her current mood she could quite happily eye gouge Phil.
“Have a seat.” Phil’s office was dim and musty, with an underlying smell of body odour and burnt dust. Zani warily eyed the picture of a semi-naked blonde that was thumb-tacked to the wall behind him.
“Busy morning?” she asked, perched on the edge of her seat, ready to flee.
“Unbelievable. The other day my graphics card popped its clogs at power on. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The cooling fan’s been getting noisier for weeks. So, thinking nothing of it, I ordered a new one. Anyway, that bean-counter, Paul, has a total dummy spit over the price of it. Normally I’d agree with him, but, you see, my motherboard wouldn’t support the new style PCI-X card—”
Zani’s eyes began to glaze over.
“—so I had to buy a new motherboard, including processor and RAM. Then the power supply needed upgrading to cope with it all, which in turn meant I needed a new case…”
Keeping her mouth shut, she yawned.
Ten minutes later she knew more than she had ever imagined about Phil’s computer.
Twenty minutes later she considered herself fully aware of the delicacies of running a network with mixed platforms.
Fifteen minutes after that Zani was on intimate terms with the configuration of the internal switchers and routers which Phil had been working on that morning. The beige hell-hole that was her office upstairs suddenly seemed like a peaceful sanctuary. She deeply wished she was back there.
So self-absorbed and dull was he that Zani began to sincerely doubt he had the imagination to sell company secrets. In desperation she broke into his monologue and tried to sway him toward something she wanted to hear about.
“So tell me, do you have access to everything.”
“Of course.”
Zani leaned toward him and tried to look suitably impressed. “What a responsibility,” she said breathlessly. She’d never been so close to a simper. “Especially as the company deals with such multi-million pound information.”
Phil needed little encouragement.
“I tell you, I can access all the progress reports, all the marketing information, everything about the next game that Sunberri will be releasing.” Zani’s ears began to burn. Surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to actually admit he had been leaking Sunberri secrets.
“It must be hard not to tell people about all that confidential information,” said Zani, smiling convivially. Phil’s reaction was not one that she hoped for. His eyes narrowed, which made him look even more like a ferret than usual, and an expression of deep suspicion crossed his face. Evidently he knew about the information leaks.
Sensing his withdrawal, Zani changed tack.
“So do you have access to, say, Corbin de Villiers computer?”
“I can access it here…”
“So if you wanted you could, perhaps, take a look at his emails?”
“Yes, it’s easy…”
“But don’t you need his password to do that?”
“Oh, no, I just use my administration account and I can access all the email accounts. Even the temporary one we set up for you.” He grinned wolfishly at her and gave her a wink.
“Look Phil, I
’ll level with you,” she said, hoping that the wink was some sort of twitch. Tourette’s perhaps. “I was fiddling about with Corbin’s computer and I accidentally deleted some information. I was wondering, if I had the password I could reinstate it before he realised.” She lied easily and added a trembling lip for effect.
“Well, well, well,” said Phil. The wolfish grin had been replaced with a small, nasty smile. “Her true motivation comes out. Wants old Phil to do her a favour.”
“I’d very much appreciate it,” she said, keeping up the wide-eyed act, though her skin was crawling.
“So if I were to give you Corbin’s password, what would I get in return?” The innuendo in his tone and his calculating expression made Zani shudder. “I mean if we were to be found out it would be my job. What can you offer me that would be worth my job?” He leered at her.
Appalled, Zani decided to backtrack, fast. She’d wasted her time. Getting Corbin’s password would exact a price that she could never pay. Not even if Fang’s life depended on it. Not even if the Baltic 147 depended on it. Not even… She ran out of not evens and realised that for a list it was pathetic. She resolved that if she ever escaped from Phil’s clutches, she’d get a life that did not revolve around small dogs, boats and documentaries.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Grasping at straws, she hoped he’d back off if she kept up the innocent act.
“Really? Well here’s a suggestion. I run an Internet site with photos of women. If you’d pose for a few photos, I’d be happy to give you access to anything you wanted. Some men’d find a girl like you quite attractive.”
Zani stared at him, speechless with disgust.
But not for very long.
She stood.
“Pig. You’re nothing but a sexist pig,” she snarled. Her flag, claiming the high moral ground, was once more fluttering in the seventeen knot breeze. Phil goggled at her and her words came in a rush.
Secret Intentions Page 7