exciting thing I’d done on the job in at least six months. And it was cooler and more exciting when after only three hours of calling, holding, checking if people had the authority to give information, worrying about GDPR and holding some more, I finally got an answer.
“Ed Brown?” said the woman on the other end of the line. “Yes, he used to. But he handed in his notice last month.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“I’m not sure I can—”
“Give that information over the phone to a total stranger. I get it. Look I’ve got a license, I’m a real PI, you can look me up.”
There was an ominous sound of keystrokes from the other end of the line “Doing that right now. Wow, your website is really out-of-date.”
“Yeah, I’ve been busy.”
“This looks unbelievably suss.”
“We’re a small business, we don’t have the resources to—”
“I’m sorry but there are a whole bunch of red flags here. I’m going to have to talk to my manager.”
Well shit. “Don’t you da—” Too late. I was cut off by some plinky classical music. Opening a new browser tab, I fired up Google maps and tried to work out if it would be quicker to go to Brentford in person than to sit on the phone listening to a piano concerto more or less indefinitely. 53 minutes on the Piccadilly Line. Almost tempting.
After a wait that could easily have got me to Ravenscourt Park if I’d left there and then, the lady came back. “So my boss says we can’t give out details of former employees because—”
“Please don’t say because of GDPR.”
“Because of GDPR.”
“Between you and me, does anybody at your company know what that actually is, or are they just using it as an excuse to get out of answering questions they don’t want to answer?”
That at least made her laugh. “Please don’t get me started. It’s been a nightmare.”
“And I suppose I’d get the same answer if I showed up in person?”
“Afraid so. Sorry, Kate.”
Okay, desperation gambit time. “You did know the guy, though. Didn’t you.”
“I should get off this line.”
“That’s fair, that’s fair. But—and I’m aware this is clutching at straws—would you be at all open to having the information seduced out of you by a middle-aged lesbian whose job sounds about three times sexier in theory than it is in practice?”
“Well when you say it like that, how can I refuse?”
“People normally find a—hang on did that work?”
“What can I say, you got me curious. I’m off work at five, there’s a fairly decent gastropub near the office. Wear something PI-like.”
I was beginning to feel like I’d been played. “You’re not seriously expecting me to seduce you, are you?”
“Why don’t we see how it goes? I’ll see you there.”
She hung up, and a couple of seconds later my phone buzzed with an unknown number. I wrote this down from our call logs. Which technically violates GDPR but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.
This lady was going to be trouble. I hoped she’d wind up being the right sort of trouble.
What with the travel and the being on hold, it was close to the end of working hours already, so I finished up what little I could work out how to do in the office and set out for Brentford. The bus was going to be a non-starter at this time of day, so I swallowed my pride and my fear of being drawn literally into hell, and got on the damned Tube at Covent Garden.
It was proper rush hour, so the platform was packed, and I edged my way along to the end like they always tell you to do on the announcements. In theory, one of the things I love about London is being smack in the heart of the joyful chaos of life in a thriving metropolis. Then again in theory—I don’t know, I’m not a scientist—but probably there’s loads of stuff that’s true in theory that isn’t true when you test it out. Like was there something about bumblebees? Anyway in real life the joyful chaos of the thriving metropolis was hot and crowded and awful and inconvenient. I missed one train because it was physically impossible to cram any more human bodies onto it, and as it was roaring away from the platform I could have sworn I heard a sound like sixty dogs barking in the tunnel behind it. Then again, it was the Tube, I’d heard weirder sounds.