Day fifteen: Gladiators

Even, maybe especially, when cornered Jeffery Drum was a bullying bruiser determined to deflect blame. This time, he attempted to swat Charlie Tams away.

"I shouldn’t be telling you this, Charlie", he blustered, "but Tabs is planning a surprise holiday in India. She won’t be pleased that you know".

"She gets heat-sickness", Charlie protested.

To deal with the Times of India advertisement, Drum ordered an internal enquiry.

"Not Barry", he said. "The practice manager should have spotted this. Silas will investigate; he’s got a keen forensic mind and it’ll be invaluable experience".

"Silas can’t do it," came a voice.

"Who said that?" Drum asked in amazement, looking round the office.

"It was Barry," answered Cressida. Barry realised it was!

"Silas has to explain his CV first. My wife believes it contains unreliable information about this past employment," said Barry.

Drum exploded.

"Something else you should have known if it’s true; but how would your wife know?"

Erin would know, Barry explained firmly, because of ten years’ experience in the departments cited in Silas’s CV. ("Ahhh yes," mused Drum, "some Big Four outfit".) Barry, couldn’t have failed to check the CV because his appointment as practice manager coincided with Silas’s appointment.

"If I remember correctly, Jeffery, you managed the whole business".

Instead, Drum suggested, Cressida should carry out the enquiry.

"Don’t be daft!" said Cressida. "I placed the advertisement and, even if I hadn’t, I’ve got personal bias against one of the involved parties. Or have you forgotten my Welsh auntie Gladioli, Jeffery?"

Jeffery, though dumbstruck by Cressida’s unprecedented sense of professional decorum (which he was immediately tempted to blame on Coach Carol) had indeed forgotten Gladioli. An aspiring young professional contralto, she had agreed to sing with Drum’s amateur Gilbert & Sullivan society in a crisis, but not to have to weather his unwelcome advances. Spurning him, she told him he had a small voice, for which slight he ensured that damning reviews appeared in all the papers.

But Cressida also had beans to spill on Drum and Tabby Tams.

"They’d meet outside Beauty Blooms where I worked. They didn’t notice me behind the alstroemerias".

Barry looked blank.

"Peruvian lilies, Barry. Yes, they’ve made fools of me and Mr Tams, but they shouldn’t have tried making a fool of Barry. What a boss! Even if he knows nothing about flowers".

Charlie Tams, taking life as it came, shrugged. Barry Abacus blushed.

The river is approaching the sea - so don't miss next week's developments...