Never Mind The Botox: Rachel (21 page)

They both nodded, looking rather excited by this unexpected turn of events.

‘So, we need to gather as much information as we can on this before my meeting with Tom Duffy tomorrow morning. Rosa, why don’t you help me for a bit? And AJ, you finish the presentation. It’s nearly done, isn’t it?’

AJ nodded.

Rachel got out the two photocopied black book pages that she had carefully hidden inside her notebook. She also took out a copy of the June Mayfield/Lisa Albrecht invoice that she’d found earlier. She sat down next to Rosa and talked her through what was recorded in the black book.

‘This shows the link between the real name and the false name, you see? And then this is the invoice under the false name where it shows it being paid in cash.’

Rosa looked at the invoice. ‘The invoice amount isn’t the same as the amount in the black book.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Rachel looked at the two documents. The black book said six thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds, but the invoice was for
five
thousand eight hundred and fifty.

‘God, I hadn’t noticed that,’ said Rachel.

‘What’s happened to the difference?’ Rosa asked.

Rachel and Rosa looked at each other. Rachel was pretty sure they both knew what the answer was: it was in Lloyd Cassidy’s pocket. If so, that was far more serious. The fact that he was using false names was one thing, but this was fraud: stealing from his fellow partners.

‘Right, we need to trace each of the invoices for these two pages as quickly as we can,’ said Rachel.

Rachel and Rosa worked furiously for the next hour, looking up each of the false names listed and then finding the invoiced amount. Rachel did the searches and Rosa recorded the findings on her laptop. There were twenty-eight entries on the two pages covering a period of a couple of months.

‘Right, the total amount charged per the black book is a hundred and ninety-four thousand six hundred pounds, but the total amount actually invoiced is a hundred and fifty two thousand two hundred. That’s forty-two thousand four hundred pounds short, assuming that the clients actually paid the amount in the book,’ said Rosa.

‘Wow, in two months? That’s not good,’ said Rachel.

‘How do we know what cash the clients actually paid him? This handwritten book doesn’t prove anything,’ Rosa asked.

Rachel sat and thought for a few moments.

‘To be honest, I don’t think we do − not without asking the clients to confirm it, and they’re hardly likely to do that seeing as they chose to pay extra to make sure there were no records with their name on. We’ll just have to report what we know.’

Rachel felt quite sick. The size of the fraud could be huge and she’d nearly missed it. How could she have convinced herself that it wasn’t that important? God, what a wakeup call this project was turning out to be.

Chapter
16

Rachel couldn’t decide how best to break the news to Shali that she and Rowan had
been seen, so in the end she just blurted it right out. As she’d suspected, Shali was horrified.

‘You saw Carl this morning and he said someone came in and saw us, actually, well, at it? Is that what he said?’

Rachel nodded.

‘Oh my God, how embarrassing! Do you think they watched?’ Shali asked.

That hadn’t even occurred to Rachel. Probably.

‘No, no, I shouldn’t think so,’ she said to Shali. ‘The way Carl described it, they just looked in and then left again.’

‘Oh no!’ Shali covered her face with her hands. ‘What a total disaster. I’m meeting Rowan tonight.’ Shali looked up anxiously at Rachel. ‘He said that he’d told you?’

‘Yes, he did. He said he wants to explain things to you face to face,’ said Rachel.

‘I know. He’s such a nice guy. I said it wasn’t necessary but he insisted.’ Shali stared slightly dreamily out of the window.

‘He’s working things out with Laura, you know,’ said Rachel, slightly unnerved.

‘Yes, I know. Will you call him first? Tell him that we were seen. I can’t bear to.’

‘Yes, okay, if you want. Also, Carl made it pretty clear he wants the people who know who it was to own up. I don’t think he’s exactly expecting Rowan to drop in and see him, so that means you and me,’ said Rachel.

‘And if we don’t?’ Shali asked.

‘He can work it out anyway. He probably just needs to talk to more people to show that he can confirm the descriptions,’ said Rachel.

‘So damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Great,’ said Shali.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping their drinks and staring at the other people happily enjoying their lunches, oblivious to their crisis.

‘I guess I’ll have to go and see Carl. That will probably be better than him asking loads of questions. Do you think it will get out?’ Shali asked.

‘It shouldn’t do,’ said Rachel. ‘This sort of thing is meant to be confidential.’ But hardly ever is, she thought.

‘God, I bet I get a right bollocking,’ said Shali.

‘I’m sure you can explain that it was just a one-off and that you don’t usually do that sort of thing.’

They both knew that wasn’t quite true.

‘Anyway, Carl is hardly one to talk − Mr Hotel Room himself,’ said Shali. ‘Maybe I should do a deal with him: we won’t tell if he doesn’t.’

‘Well, he’s denied he’s seeing Audrey and I didn’t actually see them do anything, so we can’t prove it,’ said Rachel. ‘Anyway, that would be madness, far too risky. He’d probably shop us for trying to blackmail him.’

‘Alright, stupid plan. I’ll have to tell him I was with Rowan,’ said Shali, now resigned to the fact that she had no choice but to own up.

‘I’m sure he’ll talk to me about that too,’ said Rachel. ‘I’ll get some big lecture about my choice of guests at important functions.’

‘Better than being fired.’

‘They won’t fire you!’ said Rachel. ‘It’s not that bad.’

‘Are you sure? I bet they could if they wanted to,’ said Shali.

‘Well, they won’t want to. You’re too highly rated. They’ll probably just send you on a training course or something,’ said Rachel.

‘What, a course on how to keep your knickers on? That would be a new one for Payne Stanley,’ said Shali.

They both giggled loudly at the thought.

Rachel looked at her watch. ‘I’d better get back. Got a major “shit hitting the fan” meeting to prepare for.’

‘God, what a pair we are!’ said Shali.

As Rachel walked back to work, her phone beeped in her bag. She had a text from Harry:
Have been total fool. Can we talk? I need you, babe. H.

She stared at it sadly. ‘Well, I don’t need you,’ she said out loud to herself, and texted back the first words that jumped into her head:
Leave me alone. It’s over
. Before she could change her mind, she pressed send and saw her words flash on the screen. Is that what she really meant to send? Was that really true? Too late now.

Rachel rang Carl as soon as she got back to the office after lunch. She confirmed their appointment with Tom Duffy first thing in the morning and then went on to tell him about the invoiced amounts being less than the amounts noted in the black book.

‘He’s still charged them over the odds,’ Rachel explained. ‘But we think that he’s kept some of the cash for himself and only put the lower amounts through the books.’

Rachel couldn’t help herself and added, ‘And Audrey does all Lloyd’s paperwork for him, so we think she must be in on it too.’

‘You’ve just noticed this?’ Carl asked.

‘Yes, when we sat down this morning to get the supporting information you wanted. We’ve looked up every invoice that we have names for. They’re all less than the amount in the black book.’

‘Maybe the black book isn’t the right amount?’ Carl suggested.

‘Well, why would they bother to write it down then? When I saw Francesca Hart come in she was there when Lloyd wrote in the book. She gave them cash at the time and I’m sure what they wrote is what she agreed to pay.’

‘Okay, well get down everything you have and let’s talk to Tom tomorrow. This really isn’t great,’ said Carl.

‘I know,’ said Rachel. For anyone, she thought.

Rachel was determined to show that she was organised and in control for when Carl came out in the morning. As she ran though her to-do list, she realised in horror that she hadn’t rung Clive Steele from the PR company as Tom had asked her to. He was bound to ask her about it in the morning. She quickly picked up her phone. Clive Steele wasn’t in, so she was put through to one of his team.

‘Tim Archer, can I help you?’

‘Oh yes, good afternoon, this is Rachel Altman from the corporate finance team at Payne Stanley. We’re working with the Beau Street Group at the moment and Tom Duffy asked if I could give Clive Steele a call to see if we could help provide you with some information for their new marketing plan. I understand that Clive isn’t in at the moment.’

‘Yes, that’s right, but it’s me that you probably want to speak to anyway as I’ll be leading the work from our side. Clive runs the place,’ said Tim.

Rachel had thought she recognised Clive’s name but she was pretty sure she didn’t know anyone who was the head of a PR company. It must be someone else.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rachel. ‘When would you like to meet? Early next week works for me.’

It would be good to get the Equinox presentation out of the way first.

‘That’s too late for our deadline, I’m afraid. I was hoping that we could meet as soon as possible. Tomorrow would be ideal,’ said Tim.

Tomorrow! That didn’t give her much time to prepare, but at least she could report progress to Tom when they met. Plus, she’d forgotten to phone them and she could do without getting the blame for them missing their deadline. She would just have to fit them in.

‘I’m busy first thing, so it would have to be after that. Maybe around lunchtime?’

‘Midday would work for me,’ said Tim.

‘Fine, let’s do that,’ said Rachel, looking wearily at her packed diary. At least they were getting paid extra for helping this PR company out.

That evening, Rachel lay exhausted on the sofa in her flat talking to Rowan on the phone. She’d got hold of him on his way to meet Shali and he was equally mortified that they’d been seen.

‘Shit, Rachel, that’s awful!’

‘I know, I’m sorry, but I thought it was only fair that you knew,’ said Rachel.

‘God, I wonder which side of the room the adjoining door was?’ said Rowan.

‘Does it matter?’ Rachel asked.

‘Well, yes, it does. Did they see our heads, or well, how can I put it, not our heads. Oh what a nightmare, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’

All sorts of images flashed through Rachel’s head that she quickly tried to get rid of.

‘I guess you’ll never know,’ said Rachel. ‘The thing is that work knows it was Shali. One of the staff gave enough of a description that they could work it out.’

Rachel told Rowan all about her meeting with Carl Stephens and accusing him of seeing Audrey Fox.

‘He is so seeing her, the lying bastard.’

‘Did you actually see anything?’ Rachel asked.

‘I saw them holding hands. Well, he had his hand on her arm, anyway,’ said Rowan.

‘That’s not quite the same as holding hands. Maybe that was just in an old friends sort of way,’ said Rachel.

‘I’m sure his wife wouldn’t have thought so if she’d seen them,’ said Rowan.

‘Maybe, but I guess we can’t be sure. Anyway, I’m afraid Shali is going to have to own up to Carl that it was her. Otherwise she’ll just get in more trouble. So I thought I’d better warn you. Just so you know. If it does get round then people will probably work out that Shali was with you,’ said Rachel.

‘It’s bound to get round,’ said Rowan. ‘I know what your place is like − no one can keep anything quiet. But I guess there’s not much I can do about it now. Will Shali be in big trouble?’

‘Hard to say for sure. She might get away with a warning, but it will still be on her files and that’s not great,’ said Rachel. ‘She’ll just need to behave herself for a while, let it all die down.’

‘Shit, I feel even worse now,’ said Rowan. ‘Good thing you caught me before I meet her. It gives me a bit more time to work out what to say to her.’

‘Where does Laura think you are?’ Rachel asked.

‘Out with a mate from university. More lies.’

‘That should be it after today, though,’ said Rachel, waiting for Rowan to agree with her.

He didn’t. ‘Well, you can tell that boyfriend of yours that it’s the last time I play drinking games with him for a while. Far too dangerous.’

Rachel felt a lump in the back of her throat and tears pricked at her eyes. ‘He’s not my boyfriend anymore. We’ve split up,’ she said slowly.

‘What! Why?’ Rowan asked.

‘It’s complicated.’

‘It generally is,’ said Rowan.

Rachel told Rowan what had happened.

‘So my life is now total shit,’ said Rachel. ‘Everything is going wrong.’