Fall Girl by Toni Jordan Read Free Book Online

girl.’
    â€˜Sam,’ I say. ‘Shut it.’
    â€˜Laurence,’ says Ruby. ‘The job at hand.’
    â€˜Yes, yes.’ My father frowns, and limps over to the blackboard, where the top line reads: Metcalf Trust. He adjusts the total hours of work that we have done for this job, adds up my time at the interview today. On the other half of the blackboard is a figure in a circle. The projected return.
    â€˜It’s not a lot of money, but it hasn’t been a lot of work.’ He tosses the chalk in the air and catches it, then he turns back to the board and calculates as he speaks, adding lines and multiplying by our daily and hourly rates, adding expenses. ‘Julius. Your times?’
    Julius flips open his small black notebook. ‘Two days for the grant application, a day and a half on Della’s webpage, half a day on the PhD. Just under four total.’
    â€˜Good job, Julius,’ my father says. ‘It’s a nice little return. Good job, Della.’
    â€˜My bit’s easy,’ says Julius. ‘Sitting in front of the screen, feet up, eating Cheezels. Playing computer games between attacks of technological genius.’
    My father assigns the roles. It is usual for the person who first had the idea to be the mechanic, as I am in the Metcalf job. I am the one who must drive it, who must actually perform the sting. The other roles will vary depending on the job, but often we have a wall man for lookout and perhaps a chiller, to calm things down if they get overheated and to help the mechanic escape. On this job, Julius was in support. I could not have done it without him.
    â€˜Maybe Della’ll buy Timmy an engagement ring with her share,’ says Sam.
    â€˜Maybe you could rent a girlfriend with your share,’ I say.
    â€˜You do make a very handsome couple,’ my father says. ‘I know Timothy’s parents are very fond of you, Della.’
    â€˜I thought we had a rule,’ says Ruby. ‘No congratulations until the cheque is cashed.’
    â€˜And me, Della?’ says Beau. ‘How did I go? What did he say about me?’
    Beau was my other referee, the one that wasn’t the Nobel laureate. ‘He said you were young. That’s all.’
    â€˜Too young? Did he think I wasn’t convincing?’
    I sigh. ‘He’s hardly going to say that, is he? You were fine, just fine.’
    â€˜Can we return to the job at hand?’ says Ruby. ‘Does anything still need to be done?’ She twirls her pen around her thumb.
    This job began on a rainy night almost two years ago. Julius had just received a bank deposit for his biggest job yet, which involved an oil company keen to avoid publicity about a spill near a remote colony of endangered birds. There had been no spill near the rare bird colony, of course, but the site was difficult to reach and the company knew itself well enough to think the story was likely, and besides, in circumstances like this it’s imperative that the company does not visit the sites. If there were travel records to show they had inspected the leak, their plausible deniability was shot.
    So they did not question Julius’s cover: a corrupt wildlife worker, or his Photoshopped evidence and fake WWF press releases. They just arranged the transfer of funds from their standard blackmail account. Julius promised the company reps the problem would go away if they paid him. It did. Julius gave a generous gratitude payment to the executive who approved the fee, but this was merely insurance. Large companies are usually safe to sting. They are unlikely to beef because the staff aren’t harmed individually, and the damage to their share price if the truth came out would be a greater loss than the money that had been scammed. To the oil company, it was money well spent.
    This was not really new, but a modern spin on a charity scam my father might have run in his teens or twenties: a team of