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“Hey Gemma, organising a little cheer-up for Keeley—did you know poor little bubs has got the pox?!—but lost her number for the courier. Can you resend? Don’t want to spoil the surprise Kx”
The message came back seconds later.
“Hi Katie, that is so nice!!! 0744 956 7652. Can I paypal you something for it?”
“No, all good,” I wrote back. “Ur the best!”
Then I shut down Twitter and opened up Photoshop.
* * *
SOME TWO HOURS LATER I left the print shop in Hastings with Keeley Winston’s brand-new Sunsmile employee pass in my pocket. It wasn’t the best bit of forgery I’d ever done—printing the mockup directly on one of the card blanks in my rucksack would have been more convincing, but the print shop didn’t have the facility to do that, so I’d had to make do with printing on shiny paper and then gluing the paper to the card. When I’d finished it looked okay—not good enough to withstand any kind of close scrutiny, but okay. But to be honest, if I got as far as being properly suspected, I was toast anyway. I was hoping to get away with just a casual glance—and at a casual glance it looked identical to Brian’s, only with Keeley’s name and my photo in place of his.
When I looked at my phone, I saw it was ten past ten. I had two options—and both had risks attached. I could try to phish Keeley’s computer password now, or I could wait until I was actually inside Sunsmile Insurance.
If I tried now, I would be going to Milton Keynes safe in the knowledge that I had the information I needed to see the job through.
But I didn’t have the equipment required to spoof a number, and a call from a random unknown mobile was much less convincing than one coming from her own company. If Keeley didn’t rise to the bait, I would have to start again from scratch—find someone else away from the office today, get their number, fake their ID. And I was running out of time.
The problem was that the alternative was, in some ways, even riskier—to wait until I was actually inside Sunsmile, and try for the final piece of the puzzle then. If I failed at that point, if Keeley saw through my bluff, then I was sunk. More than sunk, in fact—if Keeley realized what I was trying to do, there was a good chance someone would be waiting for me at the Sunsmile reception with a team of security, as I tried to leave the building.
Yes, the second option was riskier—much riskier. But it also had a higher chance of succeeding. And so it was the one I was going to take.
* * *
I GOT OFF THE TRAIN at Milton Keynes at just past one p.m. I had left Noemie’s camel coat balled up in the train toilets, and now I was wearing what I hoped was call center–appropriate clothing—dark blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a dark jacket. I felt keyed up, sick with nerves, and the dressing beneath my rib was throbbing in time with my thudding heart, but aside from that I felt… well, I felt better than I had in days, to be honest. I felt like I was back in my comfort zone, on a job—a job that I couldn’t afford to fail, to be sure, but how many times before had I felt like that? This was a pen test—just like any other. And I was very, very good at my job.
I was maybe five minutes away from the Sunsmile building when my phone beeped. It was a Signal message from Hel.
“Hey, are you okay? Didn’t hear from you yesterday,” she’d written. I felt a wash of serotonin, mixed with the strong feeling that this wasn’t the time or place to have a heart-to-heart with Hel.
“I’m okay,” I typed back. “Had a close shave last night—haven’t really slept—but I’m on the track of something big. Might be the first bit of good news for days.”
“WHAT?!” Her answer came through immediately, vibrating with excitement.
“I have a lead,” I typed. “On the insurance policy. I can’t talk now. I’ll message as soon as I’m out.”
“Wait, are you there right now??!!?!” Hel typed back, with an uncharacteristic number of exclamation marks.
“Yep,” I replied.
Hel responded with a single shocked-face emoji. Then, “Be careful! Keep me posted. Over and out.”
I shut down the app. Then I turned the corner—and the Sunsmile complex was sprawling in front of me.
* * *
THE BUILDING WAS EVEN BIGGER than it had looked from the photos on Instagram, and I felt a prickle of intimidation as I walked up to the glass door, but I pushed it open with what I hoped looked like confident familiarity. People were coming back from lunch, and I’d been crossing my fingers for the kind of glass security barriers that swung open or slid back like lift doors—they were fantastically easy to tailgate through. But unfortunately, Sunsmile had gone old school with metal turnstiles, the kind they’d had at the municipal swimming pool when I was a kid.
They were also annoyingly effective, and there was no way I could squeeze through with another employee without getting done for sexual harassment. I was going to have to blag it.
I walked up to the barrier with as much confidence as I could muster and didn’t break stride as I swiped my plastic card on the reader. The jolt as the turnstile failed to unlock jarred my rib so hard I had to suppress a gasp, and the metallic clang was audible over at the reception desk. What I wanted to do was wince and press my hand to my throbbing side, but instead I looked down at the swipe card I was holding, keeping my expression mild and puzzled.
Then I tried again, this time pushing the barrier more cautiously with my hand. A small queue was building up behind me, people coming back from lunch, diverting past me with sighs to the other turnstiles as they realized what had happened.
“Mine went blank the other day,” one of the girls said. “You’ll have to get Derek to swipe you through.”
Derek. If I’d had time to send up a silent prayer of thanks to a God I didn’t believe in, I would have done.
