‘Fine. If that’s what you want, then that’s what we’ll do,’ Ollie snaps, his control slipping a little.
‘Cool. When works for you?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ I agree.
‘Anything else? Any other demands?’ he says it like it’s a joke, but his eyes aren’t warm, his expression thunderous.
For once, I have the upper hand. ‘No, nothing.’
‘Fine.’ He sips his coffee. ‘Thank you, Will. I appreciate you doing this for me.’
‘I would never leave you in the lurch.’
Chapter Forty-Two
WILL
Day Twelve
‘I’msupersick,’ I groan. ‘Isimplycan’t come in.’
Somehow, I’ve caught Clive’s inflections.
He sighs on the other end of the phone as I sit on the harbour, counting boats as they sail out to sea. Hopefully, he can’t hear the early morning bustle of Athens.
‘Whatisit?’
‘Still the flu.’ I sniff. ‘But Ithinkit might be getting worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘I’machingall over, Clive,’ I say, almost adding Sly before his name. ‘I’ve beenbed-ridden all day. It might be the plague.’
‘Whatplague?’
‘Bubonic,’ I say.
‘I’m prettysurethey eradicated thebubonicplague,’ Clive retorts.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. It’s actually still a problem and people still get infected by it. You should see the spot on my back.’
‘I’mall right, thank you,’ Clive near enough shouts. ‘Well, I don’t knowwhowe’re going to get to do the Word docs.’
‘Excel spreadsheets,’ I correct.
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s on Excel, not Word doc.’
‘Yes, like it matters.’ Clive confirms what I already knew: my job could implode tomorrow and nothing would change at the company. Programmes would be animated; children’s shows would make it to air. It makes me feel less guilty selling him my implausible story of the bubonic plague.
‘You realise we have a newmemberof staff starting?’ Clive asks me.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. She is anadminofficer,’ Clive says.
