Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit Read Online Free PDF Page A

and she would only get it back if he could keep 30 per cent of everything he retrieved for her. 'You mean', she said, 'I'll have $700 to spend again if you keep $300. At least that's better than having lost the $1000.' Was she still interested, he had asked? Apparently his mother had nodded vigorously. The same essential principle applies here, but for much larger amounts."
    "So why did you send me that email, Davide? I still don't get it."
    "Patience, Caterina, patience. And you're going to have to wait a little longer, as I need the bathroom."
    He left.
    "What the 'bleep, bleep, bleep' do you think you're doing, Emilia?"
    "What d'you mean?"
    "You know perfectly well. He invited me yet you are all over him."
    "No I'm not. In any case, why shouldn't I be interested? It is relevant to me."
    "Yes, that may be true. But don't mention it, at least not until I know more."
    "Afraid that I'm going to run off with your boyfriend?"
    "In your case, yes. I know you. And he's not my boyfriend. How many times have I told you?"
    "That's not how you act or react around him. You are more like a teenager in heat than a sheila in her late thirties. What did happen in Rome? You always refuse to explain. Maybe I would be more sympathetic if I knew more."
    "You're fishing again. Anyhow, ssshh! I hear him coming back ... What shall we do tomorrow?"
    Davide returned to the table, unaware that he had been the subject of fevered female debate.
    "Given that it's the weekend I thought that we might see some of Madrid, or go to the Casa de Campo for some open air. It's a huge park that you can reach by the Metro or via an aerial gondola bridge. I recommend the latter. What d'you think?"
    Caterina pondered. She was cross about Emilia's reactions and with herself. She braced to try to seem open and willing.
    "That sounds different. Can we decide in the morning? Before that I still want to know more about why you think you want me?"
    Whoops! She had done it again. Double entendres were becoming rampant between her and Davide. She saw Emilia grinning like mad, which only irritated Caterina further.
    "Why don't you carry on from where you left off, Davide?"
    "Yes, yes. Where was I? You both now understand the business appeal? Essentially, there's money to be returned from overpayments held on the books of supplier companies that were not repaid as they should have been. Remember, supplier companies have little incentive to return these owed monies to the buyer company if it doesn't ask –"
    "Because," suggested Emilia, "the money owed to the buyer company, if unclaimed, eventually ends up increasing the profits of the supplier?"
    "Exactly. According to Felipe, it seems that that supplier companies tend to hold these amounts owed to buyer companies on their books for two to three years, in case there's a claim by the buyer companies. This is because their accountants insist on it. In practice, when two or three complete years have passed, the overpayments are released to profit. Or that's what happens in the US."
    Davide hesitated before continuing: "Yet I have a feeling, a bit like the way I guess Nelson felt in Rome, that something more is going on. But it's only that; a suspicion. I ..."
    "But I still don't get it. Where do I come in?" interposed Caterina.
    "As I told you earlier, I'm uncomfortable about what Felipe and ORS are finding here in Spain. The ORS software analysis is very US-focused, proving extremely effective in as far as it goes. All this is organised supplier by supplier so that the ORS recovery specialists, who work closely with its client's Accounts Payable people, receive lists of what to investigate and where to seek repayments. The next ORS task is to approach each supplier, using the analysed data, to ask it to return the overpayments or refund the credit notes or explain why ORS has misunderstood. This is a process that can take several months, with returned monies trickling back to the client, against which ORS eventually invoices