Agency

In Which Everyone is Acting Suspiciously

Friday, late afternoon to evening

David

"We have a problem, Niall."

David's normally curated composure seemed to have slipped just slightly, like an errant bra-strap showing under a Gucci gown. "I billed the extra hours for the Atrabax re-work right away to make sure we wouldn't get stiffed and..." he hesitated.

Niall looked up from his phone, on which he was scrolling through the global agency's open roles. The Singapore office was looking for an ECD (Executive Creative Director). He wondered if he could hack a life of strange foods and stifling heat. Anything might be better than the complete bore-fest Toronto had turned out to be.

"And what, David? What's the matter? Spit it out, by God." Niall was disinterested in David's accounting dramas. In fact, he was disinterested in all of this.

David straightened his spine and tried to take a more even tone.

"Well, it was rejected. Apparently, the account has reached its safety limits. If we need to bill any more through it, the client will have to approve."

"Then get bloody Berry to go bloody begging," Niall said as though that were the end of it.

"Of course, I can do that," replied David. "But I was thinking -- isn't it strange that the account is at its limit already? A big pharma account like that? Surely we'd have had at least 100k to play with... and I know for a fact we haven't billing anything close to that yet. So, where has all the money gone?"

Niall looked at David for a moment.

"Strange indeed," he agreed. His finger tapped the edge of his desk. "What has our rising-star golden-boy been up to, I wonder?"

The two men sat quietly for a moment. Niall raised his eyebrow at David with an unspoken directive. David nodded and left the room.

Margot

The problem was that diaper creative she'd done in secret was some of the best work she'd done in a while. She liked the Atrabax Warrior stuff, but now it turned out that was never going to see the light of day thanks to a last-minute change of heart by the client.

Even though she knew she couldn't put the diaper art in her portfolio without outing herself as the moonlighter, she secretly kept a few mocks tucked away in her files just in case.

Martin

Martin had been tailing Berry for the better part of two weeks. Even though they worked on different floors, this was easy to do because Martin took an astronomical number of 'smoke breaks' in a day and was, therefore, almost always lurking around outside in the alley beside the building. He'd see Berry come out of the building and follow him at a safe distance. Berry's usual destination was the little park nearby where his ugly, fat dog would raise its stumpy leg and drench something in urine.

Most days, that was all he'd see. But twice now, he'd also observed the Managing Director come out of the building after Berry and tail him to the park. It was almost comical. Berry followed the dog, Allegra followed Berry and Martin followed them all.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting to see, but he figured he'd know it when he saw it. And he had his phone camera ready for when he did.

Otto

"I'll just take the cheque," he sighed to Kimberly, the pub waitress. "My date has stood me up. Has to work late again."

Kimberly's ponytail bounced sympathetically, and she went to print the sad-looking man's bill.

Otto was surprised by how disappointed he was. It must be love, he thought to himself.

Allegra

She could feel Bertrand pulling away. In retrospect, she thought, maybe the dog had been an error in judgement. As much as she'd intended it to bring them closer together (and possibly to put a little distance between Bertrand and his family), it appeared to have had the opposite effect.

His children seemed to have taken to Henry straight away and renamed him something monstrously ill-suited to a noble bulldog. Mister Pancakes? Something foolish like that.

Worse, it sounded like the wife hadn't rejected Henry outright as Allegra had assumed she would. What kind of woman lets her husband bring a dog home without consulting her first? It defied explanation.

Allegra didn't like it when things didn't go to plan. She still enjoyed Bertrand's company (although she was finding more and more that she could take or leave him really), but she loved Henry. She wasn't going to sit idly by and let him be stolen away from her.

She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a post-it note upon which was scrawled a number she'd hoped never to have to use.

Bertrand's home phone.