meet whoever runs it and feel out what it would take to give up? Would you, for example, pretend to represent a potentially large new client and use this to elicit details? That way you and Alfredo might find some ammunition or dirty laundry."
"That's ingenious, Puri. But wouldn't Alfredo be better at this, being both lawyer and politician? He could stand behind legal privilege and be in the clear when he declines to name any possible client or clients. In addition, he'd be more likely to recognise any legal mistakes ORS might be making, which he might exploit more easily than I would."
Alfredo partly agreed, "You're probably right from one perspective, Marta. I would be better able to do as Puri suggests. The downside is that once ORS is exposed to me it would be far harder for me to operate in the background to weave together other pressure points that might convince ORS to pack up and go. The more I reflect on it, the more I think Puri's right. It would be best if you went in first to explore the lay of the land before we work out which route is best. Does that make sense?"
Marta wasn't convinced. But, over this weekend, she had concluded she was not in a strong position to object. She really did not want to sacrifice all her hard earned comforts unless there was no other choice.
"I guess it does. So what's next?"
CHAPTER SIX
Disillusion with Disappointment
Monday: Malasaña
Davide entered the salon to find Emilia and Caterina looking downcast. He wondered what had happened. Saturday evening had unexpectedly (to him) been a success, with all reasonably enjoying themselves for a work-based evening at least, until Ana called a halt at what must have been nearly 4 a.m. Sunday had proved to be a recovery day, not so much from hangovers but rather through lack of sleep. Monday had passed without Davide seeing much of Caterina or Emilia. Now he felt concerned and obliged, about how to tell Caterina he had arranged to meet Inma.
More than simple intuition told him that she wasn't going to be happy. Indeed, she had not mentioned Inma once either at or after the encounter in the night club and this in spite of questions from Emilia plus Ana going on about how much Inma had changed and for the better. In one sense it was amusing; in another it felt like a severe headache about to descend.
Deciding to postpone entering that particular minefield, especially around Emilia who did not know any of the details and was bound to try to ask more unanswerable questions, he opened with: "Neither of you look especially ecstatic. Can I help? Is something wrong?"
In unison they turned to him. Caterina waved her hands to indicate Emilia could do the talking.
"We are feeling useless at ORS. We've sliced and diced the information that its clients provide. Caterina's performed some interesting cross-referencing from my suggestions and I've taken what she produced. We've tried looking at everything differently. We agree with your original gut feelings. Something's not right about these various accounts and companies but for the life of us we can't see exactly what's wrong."
"Can you be more specific?"
Emilia described the heart of the problem, the double counting, the multiple invoicing and the numbers of credit notes that had not been refunded to suppliers. She illustrated instances where agreed price reductions hadn't been applied. After seemingly endless analysis trying to track credits going through to the profit and loss accounts, the financial trail had gone dead, at least as far as the existing data went.
"Remember we can only see purchasing and payments, not all of the accounting entries. For example, even trying to understand via the tax payable accounts I can't reconcile how, or if, any duplicate monies are actually taxed. This suggests that something's been flowing out of each client in some deliberately hidden way. The obvious mechanism is by some
"That's ingenious, Puri. But wouldn't Alfredo be better at this, being both lawyer and politician? He could stand behind legal privilege and be in the clear when he declines to name any possible client or clients. In addition, he'd be more likely to recognise any legal mistakes ORS might be making, which he might exploit more easily than I would."
Alfredo partly agreed, "You're probably right from one perspective, Marta. I would be better able to do as Puri suggests. The downside is that once ORS is exposed to me it would be far harder for me to operate in the background to weave together other pressure points that might convince ORS to pack up and go. The more I reflect on it, the more I think Puri's right. It would be best if you went in first to explore the lay of the land before we work out which route is best. Does that make sense?"
Marta wasn't convinced. But, over this weekend, she had concluded she was not in a strong position to object. She really did not want to sacrifice all her hard earned comforts unless there was no other choice.
"I guess it does. So what's next?"
CHAPTER SIX
Disillusion with Disappointment
Monday: Malasaña
Davide entered the salon to find Emilia and Caterina looking downcast. He wondered what had happened. Saturday evening had unexpectedly (to him) been a success, with all reasonably enjoying themselves for a work-based evening at least, until Ana called a halt at what must have been nearly 4 a.m. Sunday had proved to be a recovery day, not so much from hangovers but rather through lack of sleep. Monday had passed without Davide seeing much of Caterina or Emilia. Now he felt concerned and obliged, about how to tell Caterina he had arranged to meet Inma.
More than simple intuition told him that she wasn't going to be happy. Indeed, she had not mentioned Inma once either at or after the encounter in the night club and this in spite of questions from Emilia plus Ana going on about how much Inma had changed and for the better. In one sense it was amusing; in another it felt like a severe headache about to descend.
Deciding to postpone entering that particular minefield, especially around Emilia who did not know any of the details and was bound to try to ask more unanswerable questions, he opened with: "Neither of you look especially ecstatic. Can I help? Is something wrong?"
In unison they turned to him. Caterina waved her hands to indicate Emilia could do the talking.
"We are feeling useless at ORS. We've sliced and diced the information that its clients provide. Caterina's performed some interesting cross-referencing from my suggestions and I've taken what she produced. We've tried looking at everything differently. We agree with your original gut feelings. Something's not right about these various accounts and companies but for the life of us we can't see exactly what's wrong."
"Can you be more specific?"
Emilia described the heart of the problem, the double counting, the multiple invoicing and the numbers of credit notes that had not been refunded to suppliers. She illustrated instances where agreed price reductions hadn't been applied. After seemingly endless analysis trying to track credits going through to the profit and loss accounts, the financial trail had gone dead, at least as far as the existing data went.
"Remember we can only see purchasing and payments, not all of the accounting entries. For example, even trying to understand via the tax payable accounts I can't reconcile how, or if, any duplicate monies are actually taxed. This suggests that something's been flowing out of each client in some deliberately hidden way. The obvious mechanism is by some
Similar Books
