Never Mind The Botox: Rachel (7 page)

‘Yes, definitely a cash payment. It was paid in over the counter at our local bank.’ Chris checked the next one. ‘Yes, that one too.’ She glanced at the invoices. ‘By the way, they’re both the same doctor, if you want to talk to someone about them.’

‘How can you tell?’ Rachel asked.

‘The first three letters of the invoice number are a code for each doctor. These both start with six-zero-two. Shall I look up who that is?’

‘Yes please, that would be great, thanks,’ said Rachel.

‘Six-zero-two is Lloyd Cassidy,’ said Chris.

‘Okay, thanks. I’ll go and talk to him.’

Rachel went back into the office the team were working in. She looked through the list of documents that had all been coded with ‘other’ as the procedure type. They all started with code six-zero-two.

‘Right, time we started meeting the doctors, I think. Where’s the list?’

AJ handed it to her.

‘I’ll speak to Tom’s PA and start getting appointments set up. Hopefully we can start later today.’

She picked up the phone and dialled Tom’s PA.

‘Hi, Linda, it’s Rachel Altman. We’re ready to start meeting the doctors now. Would you be able to sort out making appointments for us?’ There was a pause, then, ‘Great, thanks, you can split them between us but could you schedule me to see Lloyd Cassidy? Okay, thanks. See you shortly, bye.’

Rachel turned to AJ and Rosa. ‘Linda will drop round appointment times for us in a bit,’ she said.

She spent the next hour or so planning a standard agenda for them to follow when they met the doctors and talking AJ and Rosa through what she’d found out from Chris.

‘Okay, so this is the plan when we meet each doctor. We need to know what areas they specialise in, what types of clients they have, the level of repeat business they get and what they see as the next big growth area.’

Linda popped in with the list of appointments and Rachel was scheduled to see Lloyd Cassidy at four p.m. that afternoon. Good, she thought. She wanted to get things sorted out as quickly as possible so they could get on with preparing their presentation.

When Rachel arrived outside Lloyd Cassidy’s office at exactly four p.m., his assistant’s desk was empty, so she went ahead and knocked on his door.

‘Come in,’ said a low voice.

Lloyd Cassidy was sitting behind his desk looking through some papers as Rachel went in. He was smartly dressed with neatly cut silver hair and a light suntan. His office was a mixture of plush luxury and medical functionality. Oak-panelled cupboards and heavily framed pictures sat alongside a hospital-style bed and a trolley covered in instruments. The surfaces and walls were covered in impressive looking certificates and industry awards.

‘Hello, I’m Rachel Altman from Payne Stanley,’ said Rachel, holding out her hand.

‘Well hello, Rachel Altman,’ said Lloyd in slightly flirty way. ‘Please do sit down.’

‘Thank you. I’m not sure how much Tom has explained to you about what it is we’re doing here?’

‘He’s told us most of it, I think. We’ve been briefed on the interest from the Equinox Practise and that you guys are here to write a report giving us the all clear, so to speak. Is that about right?’ Lloyd asked.

‘Well, yes, sort of,’ said Rachel. ‘As part of producing our report, we’re speaking to all the doctors so we can understand a bit better where your work comes from and what sort of thing you’re best known for.’

‘I’m known for being good at many things,’ said Lloyd. ‘But I assume you’re focusing solely on my medical abilities.’ He smiled at her.

Ugh, how smarmy, thought Rachel. She half-smiled back. ‘Yes I am. Would you mind telling me a bit about your work?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m one of the longest serving doctors here at Beau Street Group. I’ve been qualified as a plastic surgeon for more than ten years and was a general surgeon before that. Let me give you a copy of my CV.’ He opened his desk drawer and took out a printed information sheet. ‘This is what I give to my patients. You can keep that copy.’

Rachel looked at the sheet. It had a large picture of Lloyd in the top left-hand corner that looked more like a photo of an actor than a surgeon. She sensed that Lloyd rather liked giving out his CV.

‘I do a lot of facial cosmetic surgery − face lifts and so on − but I also do a number of our other main procedures, such a breast augmentation. I’m particularly well known for my short-scar or mini facelifts, which are very subtle and have much lower levels of scarring than a more traditional facelift.’

Rachel nodded as she wrote her notes. ‘Where do your clients mainly come from?’

‘A combination really. I’ve lectured quite extensively around the world, which means that I’m pretty well known in the industry. As a result, I have quite an international client base. Many clients come from word of mouth referrals from satisfied customers and then there’s a reasonable level of repeat business.’

‘I see,’ said Rachel.

‘You’ve probably seen my sales figures,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m sure they will look good on one of those pretty charts you people always end up producing.’

Rachel bit her lip. ‘Yes, we’re just going through those and it’s clear that the business has been growing pretty quickly,’ she said, not able to bring herself to flatter him directly. ‘There is one thing that I wanted to run through with you. It’s about some of your sales records − they don’t seem to have the procedures noted down on them correctly. Do you know why that might have happened?’

‘Ah, we will have to bring in my lovely assistant at this point. She takes care of all my paperwork,’ said Lloyd. He picked up the phone. ‘Audrey, would you mind popping in? Thanks.’

A few moments later there was a knock on the door and a tall, blonde woman came into the room. She was dressed in a white coat teamed with a pair of high gold sandals.

‘Rachel, this is Audrey Fox. She’s my assistant nurse.’

Audrey Fox was probably in her late forties, although Rachel found it a bit difficult to tell. She was very attractive but in a way that somehow spelled trouble. Maybe it was the slightly overdone make-up or the out of place shoes; Rachel couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

‘Could you just explain to Audrey what it is that you wanted to know about my paperwork?’ said Lloyd. ‘She’s boss of that department. Bedside manner is more my forte than paperwork.’

He put his arm around Audrey’s shoulder and gave it a slight squeeze.

Rachel explained the problem again to Audrey.

‘Oh, there could be quite a number of reasons,’ said Audrey. ‘Sometimes the systems are down so we can’t look up all the codes. And we had a new secretary for a while and it took her quite some time to get the hang of things. Or sometimes Lloyd gets so busy that we have to work late and we do the paperwork manually.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rachel. ‘I also noticed that a number of payments by your clients were made in cash. Is that normal?’

‘As I was telling you earlier, we have quite a number of overseas clients and many of them like to pay in cash,’ said Lloyd. ‘Plus, you know sometimes people save up, cash under the mattress, all that sort of thing.’

Rachel didn’t think that was likely to happen very often, and certainly not as often as the number of cash payments she’d found. But she was hardly the expert here and they both seemed quite certain.

‘Right, okay. And would it also be normal for you to charge people well above the list price?’

‘Well now,’ said Lloyd, puffing his chest out slightly. ‘I don’t wish to blow my own trumpet but I do often charge my clients a premium. They know of my reputation, you see. I do also tend to get referred some of the more complex cases and they’re also more expensive.’

‘Okay, thank you both for your help. I just have a few more questions for Lloyd,’ said Rachel.

Audrey went back to her desk outside Lloyd’s office and Rachel spent another half an hour running through the rest of her questions with Lloyd.

When the meeting finished, Rachel went back to the project room and sat down. She wasn’t totally happy with the answers she’d been given, but a bit of sloppy paperwork was hardly a major issue. The business was growing quickly and Lloyd’s sales figures were impressive, as he’d been so quick to point out. Even so, she’d better talk it through with Carl.

Chapter
6

Rachel was sitting at her desk waiting for Carl Stephens to ring. While she waited, she
flicked through her Beau Street file and thought about how to raise her concerns about the missing sales details and cash payments with him. She had no real evidence that it was anything more than a minor issue with record keeping, and for all she knew paying in cash might be really common. Both matters were easily fixable and hardly likely to worry the buyers if the basic business was trading well. But her gut feeling was that there was more to it, yet if she raised it again with Beau Street she would effectively be accusing Lloyd Cassidy and his nurse of lying. On the other hand, Carl was bound to want a thorough job. He was a stickler for detail and she had Payne Stanley’s reputation to think of. It would be a disaster if she missed something. Hopefully Carl would help her work out what to do next and without upsetting everyone.

She jumped when her phone rang.

‘Rachel Altman. Oh hi, Carl, yes, I’ll pop round. See you in a second, thanks.’

She spent the first few minutes of their meeting giving Carl a general update on how the project was going.

‘That all sounds like great progress,’ he said. ‘It’s good that they’re getting you the information you need so quickly. That will help us to finish on time.’

‘There’s a meeting on Monday at two p.m. with all the other advisers to go through the deal timetable. I think it would be good if you could be there. I can give them a progress report, so you won’t need to prepare, but I think Tom would like it if you came,’ said Rachel.

Carl checked his diary. ‘Yes, I can just about do that. I need to be away sharpish, though, as I have another meeting at three thirty,’ he said.

‘Okay, that’s good. There are a couple of points that I wanted to just chat through with you now; not problems necessarily, but I’d quite like your advice on how to deal with them,’ said Rachel. She went on to explain her concerns to Carl.

‘It doesn’t sound like anything much to me,’ said Carl when she’d finished. ‘I’ve known Tom for many years and he runs a pretty tight ship. The new computer systems probably didn’t help; there are always a few teething problems.’

‘I just thought that maybe I should look into it a bit further? Widen the sample out a bit maybe and see how common a problem it is?’

‘I don’t think there’s any need,’ said Carl. ‘Just add a section to the report with recommendations for improvement and note it there. That way we’ve made it clear that it needs sorting, but I’d definitely categorise it as minor. No need to raise it at the meeting on Monday.’

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ said Rachel, rather hesitant to just dismiss it.

‘I am,’ said Carl. ‘Right, anything else? Are we done?’

‘Yes, I guess we are.’

‘Great, thanks. Let’s have another catch up next week. Sounds like this is going to be a good project for you, Rachel. I know the client is pleased so far.’

How did he know? He must have been speaking to Tom Duffy.

Rachel felt a bit deflated as she went back to her desk. Carl seemed to think she was making a bit of a fuss about nothing. Maybe he was right. She should write it up as a minor recommendation in the report and then forget about it.

She rang Rowan on his mobile. ‘Hi, how are you? Fancy lunch sometime this week? I could do with a break from the office,’ she said.

Rowan was a property consultant based to the west of London but he often came into the city visiting clients.

‘I can do tomorrow, if that’s any good for you,’ said Rowan. ‘My afternoon meetings don’t start until three, so we wouldn’t need to rush.’

‘Perfect, where?’

‘I have a meeting at The Brook Hotel in the morning. That’s quite near you and they have a good restaurant; why don’t we meet there?’

‘Sounds ideal. Meet you there at twelve thirty.’ The next day Rachel jumped out of a taxi outside The Brook Hotel at just before twelve fifteen, as the traffic had been quieter than she’d expected. The doorman, dressed in a red and grey uniform, opened the door for her, and as she entered the hotel the cool hush was a welcome change from the hot and noisy road outside. Rachel decided to wait for Rowan on one of the rather inviting looking sofas in reception, instead of sitting on her own in the restaurant. She sat down in the corner on a deeply upholstered tan sofa and ignored all the broadsheet newspapers on the glass coffee table, opting instead to read the fashion pages of a tabloid.

As she sat there a woman walking across reception caught her eye. She seemed familiar. Rachel looked up. It was Audrey Fox, Lloyd Cassidy’s assistant nurse at Beau Street. Rachel didn’t exactly feel like being sociable, so she hid behind her newspaper, leaving just enough space to watch Audrey sashay into the hotel bar. She was wearing leather trousers and another pair of impractically high sandals. Rachel had to admit she did look pretty good for her age and wondered how much she’d been availing herself of her boss’s talents.