Mentally, I run through my options. Sit here, fingers crossed it doesn't get worse? Or act. I suck in a breath. Anders left me in charge; it's his problem if he doesn't like what I'm about to do.
I call Athertons, our lawyers, and ask for Harriet Petrie, one of their employment lawyers. I'm going to need legal top cover for this. I let out my breath when they put me through. There was a chance she had already left for the weekend. I get straight to the point. Lawyers charge by the minute. I’m not wasting time chatting about her weekend plans.
“I need to sack someone high up,” I tell Harriet.
“Are you sure?” she says. “I always counsel clients to pay them off. Usually much cheaper in the long run. I can send you over an airtight compromise agreement. Of course, they’ll have to get it reviewed by their own lawyer before they sign or it won’t hold up in court.”
“We’re not giving the scumbag a penny.”
“I see,” she says, her voice even and non-judgmental.
“You realise your employee can, and probably will, take you to a tribunal?”
“Let them try.”
Like every lawyer who's ever existed, Harriet wastes no time in spelling out the consequences of precipitous action. And they're dire.
“What evidence do you have against your employee?” she asks.
I list the issues. The revised launch date. The pre-booked influencers. An expense claim for the same coffee shop at the same time as I saw the CEO of Wobbegong.
She dismisses them all. “Circumstantial at best. To hold up in court, you’ll need hard evidence.”
“We’ll get more.” I’m by no means sure of this, but being stupid enough to put in an expenses claim for a meeting with a competitor implies a lack of paranoid prudence. It suggests we’ll find further errors lurking if we go looking. Before, we didn’t know we needed to look. We do now.
But finally, I get her agreement to sit in on any meeting. She will only intervene if I do or say something wildly problematic.
After she ends the call, I sit for a moment, petrified. Harriet was clear about the risk to the company from acting precipitously. If I sink Cerium, Anders’s beloved baby, he will never speak to me again. But every moment the traitor stays in post gives another opportunity for harm.
I close my eyes, seeking the strength to make the call. Cool, calm Cora says listen to Harriet. Wild child Cora says kick their arse.
I make my choice.
I need to act. And I need to do it quickly. Harriet won’t wait around forever, and I want our mole gone now. We don't have formal security as such. We're too small. But someone is getting fired today and I have a feeling they’ll think it more than easy to get away with threatening me.
I tap the desk as I consider the issues. First, I call Scarlett. It's probably the most painful thing I'll have to do today, and that's saying something. It takes all of my self-control to swallow my pride and say, “I need your help.”
Then I track down Rob, who’s hiding in one of the low-stimulus rooms. He’s proven he can be discreet, so I explain what I need and what is going down. I’m grateful when he says, “You can count on me.”
Everything is ready. It's the last Friday of the month and the only staff left are the diehards. When there's a knock on the door, I'm behind Anders’s desk; Rob is sitting to one side.
“Come in,” I call. And he walks in.
“Piotr,” I say. “You know Rob. And also here, in this meeting, is Harriet Petrie from Athertons, who is on speaker.”
The lawyer says, “Good afternoon.”
“What's this about?” Piotr glances at his Patek Philippe watch very deliberately. “I’ve got plans.”
Clasping my hands together, I say, “For some time, we've harboured a suspicion that someone from the management team has been passing information to Wobbegong Interactive. It's recently come to our attention that person is you.”
“What the fuck?” Piotr’s head jerks back with the force of his denial. “That's bullshit.”
“Not bullshit. We have a witness to your meeting with the Wobbegong CEO.” It’s a fudge, but it sounds far more concrete than we have your expense claim.
“I talk to lots of people,” he scoffs. “That’s how I stay abreast of the market.” Then a gleam appears in his eyes. “Does Anders know about this?”
No. No, he doesn’t. But I’m not going to let this transparent attempt to undermine me distract me from my purpose. “We are prepared to go to court over this.” I let the pronoun do a lot oftalking. “You need to understand that. You are fired for gross misconduct, effective immediately.”
