My Little Pixie

Chapter Seventeen - An Ill-Judged Burger

A couple of days later, on my way back down to my office, after lunch, I called in on Quincy to ask what had happened to the report I had commissioned on the drop-off in sales.

"But I received it from Douglas two days ago and forwarded it straight on to you," he responded. He looked genuinely perplexed. "If you'll excuse me..." He started typing away at his computer, investigating what had happened, and I moved across the room to look over his shoulder.

"It's gone," he said after a few seconds. "It was here and I can all but promise that I forwarded it on to you but it is no longer here. One moment, please..."

He logged onto our backup server.

The document had vanished from that system too but there, at least, some trace had been left behind. Someone had logged into our system overnight and deleted several significant documents.

"So, it looks as if somebody has been hacking into our computers," I said as he attempted to use low level system resources to restore the missing document."

"Indeed, Sir. And, though worrying in the extreme, it is, at least, a little comforting to know that I am not going mad..."

"I understood that we had a firewall in position to prevent unauthorised access of this kind."

"Quite so, Sir." He continued to work away at the system then said, "Ah ha! There we go!" He had managed to restore a copy of the report. He started to send it to me by email but I told him not to bother. "Just print it out ," I told him.

"Very good, Sir."

I took the copy of the report back to my office and collapsed into one of the executive sofas to study the thing. But I was more than a little disappointed. It was sorely lacking in information and looked as if it had been edited in a hurry - there were an alarming number of glaring language flow errors... as if significant lumps of the document had been hurriedly cut out.

A couple of hours later, I was checking over the delivery schedule for a couple of consignments we had coming up when I heard a knock. I did not bother looking up when the door opened - there was only one person in the world who would dare to intrude on me like that and he would have to wait until I had confirmed the numbers were satisfactory.

When I had finished, Quincy was quite openly appreciating the human work of art on the coffee table. The little pixie was practicing her submissive pose.

She had not moved or said anything, of course, but I could tell from the set of her shoulders that she found the situation extremely uncomfortable.

"A particularly pleasing æsthetic," he observed when he saw that I had finished with my numbers.

He rolled one of my visitor's chairs across and sat down on it backwards with his arms draped over the backrest.

Again, he was the only person in the world whom I would allow to get away with that.

"What's up, Quince?" I asked.

"A couple of things," he answered. "Firstly, that consignment from Columbia is going to be a week late..."

He paused as I looked down and checked the numbers. That was not going to cause a problem.

"And secondly," he went on when I looked up again, "the operatives who are keeping those two young ladies under observation have just reported that they went for a burger. There's a video recording, if you'd like to see it."

"Does it show anything significant?"

"Their attempts at being sneaky were mildly amusing in a desperately inadequate sort of way but otherwise no, not really."