Day twelve: Bollywood dreams?

Erin’s call continued. She’d sat with Barry’s sister outside the Palm House while Clarice, shifting her attention from the trees, picked up Erin’s mobile and turned it on...

When Erin checked it later, she found Clarice had been online, not at tinytalesfortots.com but at timesofindia.indiatimes.com. The display showed an ad in The Times of India Accounting/Audit Classifieds for well qualified personnel. Erin immediately recognised CTT&Co’s UK telephone number and quizzed her husband.

“Not a clue”, said Barry as if reciting the family motto. “I’m busy, up to my ears with the Tams work. He’s facing a tough year”.

“Drum’s fretting about the Tams account and Far Eastern call centres”, Erin insisted. “What if they’re linked? Drum and Tams are neighbours with children at school together”.

Barry shrugged – a most unhelpful gesture over the phone.

“What if someone is setting up a cut-price accountancy firm with CTT clients and overseas staff? They’d get the clients, say, through clueless Cressida”.

“Someone like who?”

“Maybe Cressida’s fiancé? And what about Clarice?”

Barry, his head still spinning, didn’t know what to think about Clarice. For once, who could blame him for being bewildered?

“How did she just happen to find that advert, Barry? I was already wondering if she was savant; now I’m wondering if she’s psychic!”

Just then, thunder-faced Jeffrey Drum appeared in Barry’s doorway.

A split second behind Drum, equally menacing, was Cressida. Had Barry been a Gilbert and Sullivan fan like Drum, he might have imagined the Mikado and Katisha arriving in Titipu.

“I’ve a bone to pick with you”, said Drum. “Having neighbours related to non-equity staff doesn’t play well in Woodstock”.

“I’ve a bone to pick with Silas”, said Cressida. “My fiancé says his sexist talk is a disciplinary matter”.

Barry recalled the conversation he thought he’d overheard: ‘institute and ‘complaint’...

Was the world coming to an end? If so...

 “Just the moment to ask for a rise!” he declared. Listening in over the phone, Erin smiled.

Will Barry get his rise? Is someone siphoning clients off to India? Find out next week.