Demeter seems speechless. So I draw breath, trying to organize my racing thoughts.
“She’s Demeter’s PA. You know, with the ponytail? She basically runs Demeter’s life. She writes emails in Demeter’s voice; she is Demeter, often. And she’s always forwarding Demeter’s emails back to her when they get deleted. So she could easily…well…” I breathe out. “Fake one.”
“Why?” Alex looks bewildered. “Why would anyone do that?”
Again, Demeter and I exchange looks. It’s hard to convey an office atmosphere to someone who hasn’t lived in it forty hours a week.
“To screw with me,” says Demeter, her voice bleak. “At least, I would imagine.”
“Again—why?”
“My relationship with her hasn’t been…perfect.” Demeter is wringing her thin hands.
“She’s never forgiven you for making her boyfriend redundant,” I venture. “She wrote me this whole letter about it. She sounded pretty bitter. And if she’s been holding that against you all this time, if she wanted to get revenge—”
“OK, let’s stop right here.” Alex interrupts, looking alarmed. “These are very serious accusations—”
“Think about it, Demeter,” I continue, ignoring Alex. “She ran your in-box. She could enable different accounts. Control which emails you saw and didn’t see, write replies in your name, send things and delete them—I mean, she could conduct an entire fake correspondence if she wanted to.”
I’m recalling how Sarah would boast about how many emails she used to send out in Demeter’s voice. “I’ve been Demeter all afternoon,” she used to say, in that long-suffering way. And who checked them? I bet Demeter never did.
“Enough!” snaps Alex. “There’s no evidence for this.”
“This is evidence!” Demeter shakes the page at him. “This is! It doesn’t make any sense! And there were other emails like this; I saw them.”
“But you say you replied to them too,” objects Alex.
“Yes.” Demeter’s face falls. “I did.” She puts her fingers to her brow, looking desperate. “Oh God, nothing makes sense—”
“Did you ever check the email address you were replying to?” I ask. “Lindsay’s address?”
“What?” Demeter stares at me. “Of course not. It just popped up in my email contacts.”
“Well, then.” I shrug. “I’m guessing your replies never made it to Lindsay. And we can prove it,” I add in sudden inspiration. “Ask Lindsay if she ever sent Demeter this email.” I gesture at the paper. “And if she says she didn’t—”
“Contact Allersons?” echoes Alex incredulously. “Allersons never want to speak to any of us again!”
“Then commandeer Sarah’s computer. They can trace all this stuff….”
“Are you mad?” He glares at me. “Do you know what a state our staff morale is in right now? You think I’m going to go blundering in with these fantasyland tales? Demeter, you’re an old friend and I respect you very deeply, but this is over. Over.”
“You’re not still getting rid of Demeter?” I say in disbelief. “Not after this?”
“There is no ‘this’!” he explodes. “Demeter, when you said ‘evidence,’ I thought you meant evidence. Something solid. Not one email and a far-fetched theory. I’m sorry. You’ve had your chance, but now it’s the end of the line.”
And the way he says it, my heart starts to thud.
“Alex, leave it till tomorrow,” says Demeter, sounding desperate. “Sleep on it.”
“I have people on my back. I need to get this done.” He rubs his face, looking thoroughly miserable. “So if you’re really refusing to come to the meeting room, refusing to do this properly—”
“Stop!” My voice rockets up in panic. “Stop! Don’t fire!”
“You’re fired.” Alex’s voice is like a bullet. “End of.”
“You can’t do that!” I cry, outraged. “Un-fire her!”
But Alex is already stalking out of the yard, back toward the yurt village. The fire is still in full blaze, and some of the glampers are singing along to a guitar. Steve Logan has joined the throng, and I can see him swaying along to “Brown Eyed Girl.”
“You can’t do that!” I shout again as I leg it after Alex. “That wasn’t even a proper firing! It was against EU regulations!”
I have no idea if that’s true, but it probably is.
“Please, Alex,” says Demeter, hurrying beside me. “This email is proof that something weird’s been going on. And if you can’t even—”
She stops abruptly as Dad looms out of the darkness, jingling his Morris-dancing bells at her.
“La-la-la…and-a-one-and-a-two…” He bangs his sticks together cheerily at Demeter and she flinches, dropping the email printout.
“Shit!” I shout, as the paper gusts away on the breeze.
“Get the email!” shouts Demeter, chasing it desperately. “Get it!”
We’re both running frantically after the floating paper, toward the fire, stumbling over children’s feet in the darkness, causing a trail of shrieks and “ow”s but not caring. We have to get that email.
“Excuse me…let me through…” I edge past Cleo and Giles, who are lying full length in front of the campfire as Nick strums his guitar.
“Well, really,” says Cleo, affronted. “There’s room for everyone, you know….”
“Oh God,” gasps Demeter, swiping for the paper but missing.
“Get it!”
“I’m trying to—”
“No!” I scream in sudden dread as I see Giles reaching for another firelighter to throw on the flames. “No, don’t, don’t—”
But it’s too late; he’s thrown it. The fire flares up with a fresh burst of energy and catches the paper midair. Within twenty seconds it’s burned away to nothing except a few specks of ash.
It’s gone.
I’m so stunned, I can’t move for about thirty seconds. Then I turn to Demeter and she looks like a ghost.
“Demeter, it’ll be OK,” I say desperately. “I believe you; something strange has definitely been going on—shit!” I gasp as I see a spark coming from her trousers. “Your leg! Fire! FIRE!”
To my horror, Demeter’s slouchy linen trousers have started to smolder at the edges. She must have caught a flame when she was trying to get the email.
“No,” she says, as though this is the last straw, and starts stamping her foot, trying to quench the flames.
“Buckets!” cries Dad, dropping his jingle-bell stick and running. “Fire! Get the buckets!”
“Coming through, coming through, coming through, everyone—” Steve’s strident, intoning voice cuts through the hubbub. The next thing I know, there are screams and cries of surprise, Demeter is drenched in freezing water, head to foot, and Steve is standing there with an empty bucket and a look of grim satisfaction.
I cannot believe he just did that.
“Well…thanks,” says Demeter, shivering and pushing her dripping hair off her face. “I suppose. Although did you need to throw it all over me?”
“Health and safety,” he says. “Plus you deserve it. Don’t she, Katie?” He gives me a great big wink, and I glare back, livid.
“Steve, you moron.” I’m almost too angry to speak. “You total moron.”
“Just acting on your behalf,” he says unrepentantly. “She did you a wrong, so. Therefore. Ergo. You don’t mess around with Katie,” he adds ominously to Demeter. “Not unless you don’t want me not to hear about it.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!” I say, feeling an urge to hit Steve. “What are you even trying to say?”
“I’m saying it like it is, Katie.” Steve gives me his bulgy-eyed look. “Saying it like it is.”
“You got him to do that to me?” says Demeter in disbelief.
“No!” I say in alarm, but I’m not sure Demeter even hears me. She seems at the end of her tether, unaware of everyone around.
“Haven’t you done enough?” She shakes her head. “Haven’t you punished me enough? What else are you going to do, tie me up and set the dogs on me? I mean, Jesus, Katie. I know I let you go insensitively, I know you think I ruined your life, but it’s what I had to do, OK? It was my job!” She’s practically shouting by now. “I had to let you go. And I know it was difficult, but sometimes you just have to get over things! You have to—”