False Report by Veronica Heley Read Free Book Online Page B

password was to be, when she was on the phone. It would be a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, with some numerals thrown in. Quite brilliant, ensuring no one from outside could hack into their system.
    Only, Bea’s visual memory was better than her aural, and it was beyond her to memorize something she’d been told but not seen written down.
    In other words, she wasn’t able to get into the office system. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, or the second. She seized a piece of paper and wrote on it, ‘Ianthe; please give me the password in written form every day. This is my third time of asking. Bea Abbot.’
    She considered the note a trifle harsh, but . . . no, it was fair.
    She switched on her photocopier, copied the memo, and took it through to tuck under Ianthe’s keyboard.
    Looking around, she had to concede that the big front room had become rather crowded of late. Once upon a time Miss Brook had run the agency with the aid of two part-timers – and for a short time with Maggie, who’d never been much help in that area. Then Oliver had come to update them in every way, and after that dear Celia had arrived and been a tower of strength. All gone now. Bea hardly knew the names of the new girls who Ianthe had imported. All very bright and literate, with good telephone manners.
    But somehow . . . the fun had gone out of the business.
    Fun? Yes, it had been fun in the old days, matching difficult clients with the right personnel, solving problems that would have tested the imaginations of agony aunts, fielding requests to avert last minute tragedies; yes, it had been fun. And they’d felt they were fulfilling a need, smoothing their clients’ path through life.
    Now it was a business, run on strictly practical lines. There were time limits for everything. No phone call should last more than so many minutes, as time costs money. No private phone calls or emails were allowed. Other agencies should be called upon to supply hard-to-fill vacancies, even if the personnel had not been vetted by them.
    It all made for efficiency, an improved turnover. And a small regret – which was most unbusinesslike – for everything they’d lost in transit.
    Perhaps it was time for Bea to sell up and move out. She would find Celia’s address, put her in touch with the little music man and . . .
    Bother! She couldn’t even do that! In her own agency! This was ridiculous.
    She swept back into her office and went through every drawer in her own desk, looking for her personal address book. If it wasn’t in the top right-hand drawer, then where was it? Might she have put it in her handbag? No.
    Had she left it out somewhere? Most unlikely . . . but she looked, anyway. No.
    There was one place she hadn’t looked, and that was the small office which had once been Oliver’s and had subsequently been taken over by Maggie. Her paperwork was always in confusion, but her jobs were almost always completed on time and within budget.
    And there – ta-da! – was her address book, poking out from under some architect’s plans.
    Bea picked it up. It felt different. Grainy. And discoloured. She opened it at random and found much of the information inside was illegible. Had someone spilt a cup of coffee over her book?
    A nasty, suspicious thought wormed its way up from the back of Bea’s mind. She imagined she could hear Ianthe fluting, ‘Oh, poor Mrs Abbot, such an important little book, I know how much you rely on it. I suppose Maggie took it by mistake. Such a sweet girl, but perhaps . . . I hardly dare say it, as I know she’s a special favourite of yours . . . but perhaps a little clumsy at times?’
    Everything Bea touched seemed to go wrong.

FOUR
    B ea could well imagine Maggie borrowing the book for some reason and, yes, she might well have upset her coffee over it.
    What she couldn’t imagine was Maggie failing to own up. Maggie