Summer With My Sister Read Online Free PDF Page B

somewhere about her body, wasn’t it? She could hide it under a tissue in her pocket, or down in her shoe. Hell, she could tuck it in her knickers, even; they were hardly going to strip-search her. Were they?
    She hesitated. Polly was used to taking risks throughout her career, calculated risks, which usually resulted in a lot of money. So the big question was: did she have the balls to attempt to rip off her own company?
    Yes, she did, actually. She most certainly did. Polly Johnson wasn’t going to be made to look a fool by anyone. She’d have the last laugh, she thought, clicking the mouse to awaken her PC from standby. She’d forward a whole bunch of stuff to her personal email account and then . . .
    Oh. That was strange. She couldn’t get into the company email system any more. A box with ‘Unauthorized user’ had appeared onscreen. Unauthorized user . . . had they locked her out of the email network already? They had. The bastards!
    Sod it, if they were going to play hardball, then so would she. She’d go the whole hog and put some stuff on a memory stick, she decided. In for a penny, in for the whole redundancy package. She tried to open a document, but again, the words ‘Unauthorized user’ appeared. Her courage shrivelled away inside her and she leaned back in her chair, feeling defeated. They’d locked her out of the whole system, she realized. It was as if she were pressing her nose up against the window of the building, no longer allowed to see inside. God, that hurt. How could they be so mistrustful, so defensive? It wasn’t as if she’d been about to bring them down, steal all their secrets, attack from the inside, was it?
    Well, all right, she had been tempted. So much for that, though. It clearly wasn’t going to happen. Just for a second she was seized by the mad impulse to grab some of the folders from the filing cabinets and chuck them out of the window, watch them flutter down to Bishopsgate, pages fluttering in the breeze, like doves released by a magician. Then she could hurry downstairs and retrieve them from the pavement, and—
    ‘Ready for the off?’
    The security guard had appeared in her office again; had walked straight in without knocking. She was about to reprimand him for his lack of courtesy, but then remembered. She no longer had that sort of right around here.
    ‘Just about,’ she said, hoping he hadn’t noticed the deranged way she’d been eyeballing the filing cabinet.
    ‘Right, let’s be having you then.’
    She rolled her eyes, seething as she picked up the box and followed him out. He was actually going to escort her off the premises. Worse, he was using phrases like ‘Let’s be having you’, as if he thought he was some kind of hot-shot cop, when he was just a jumped-up security guard, getting a kick out of someone else’s misfortune. How pathetic.
    Still, at least he had a job.
    The walk through the open-plan area of the department to the lifts felt like the longest journey Polly had ever made. Everyone was staring. ‘Oh my God, are you leaving? Have they sacked you?’ cried Gloria, an ageing secretary who seemed to have been with the company since it had been established in the nineteenth century.
    ‘Redundant,’ was all Polly could get out through gritted teeth.
    Gasps went from assistant to assistant like a breathy breeze around the room. Redundant? Did she just say redundant ?
    Jake was at the photocopier as she approached the lift. She’d have to walk right past him. Should she stick her nose in the air and flounce by, or stop and thank him for his work, say goodbye?
    She hesitated and then, at the last moment, he looked up at her with what seemed to be gloating in his eyes. ‘Bye Polly,’ he said, his lip puckering in a smirk.
    Any words of thanks she might have spoken vanished instantly from her tongue; any olive branch was immediately smashed into bits. He could whistle for thanks now. She completely ignored him and strode on towards the lift,