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Chapter 10:
Mr Kipling was not convinced Mr Nutkin was not on drugs as he insisted a projector screen was brought in. Discovering his secretary absent, he grabbed the mail boy and got him to brings something suitable in. His feeling of being taken for a ride was only heightened as Mr Nutkin squinted and moved backwards and forwards with the acorn as if trying to find the optimal distance from the white board, which was standing in as a projector screen and was thinking about demanding a pay increase, for the acorn. To stop himself losing his patience altogether, he rang his secretary for some drinks, then remembered she wasn’t there. Probably still at the chemists. Or maybe the other two had taken her home. He opened the door and looked around, saw someone wandering past and grabbed at them.
“You! A tray of drinks - tea and coffee for two, plus biscuits. And some fruit. Milk and sugar as well, obviously.” As he gave the order, he tried to think who the man was he was talking to - he looked somewhat familiar.
Scratching his head, but recognising this wasn’t a good time to object, the financial director went off to make drinks.
—-
Meanwhile, in the pub, Janice, Sarah and Gill sat around a table, glasses of wine in one hand, huddled in slightly in the conspiratorial manner of good gossips everywhere.
“I’m telling you, he said acorn.”
“You sure he didn’t mean an obsolete computer?” piped up a voice from the adjacent table. In their hurry, the trio had not noticed a lone member of IT nursing something toxic-looking at the next table.
“I’m sure he meant what comes off trees” janice said, rolling her eyes slightly at the other two.
“Tell you what, why don’t we find out? I’ve got me laptop here…”
—-
Mr Kipling watched with ever-increasing disbelief as Mr Nutkin finally set the acorn down, taking great care in how it was positioned. Then, with great care not to upset the carefully balanced acorn, he pressed the top of it. Mr Kipling gasped.
—-
In the pub, the four gathered round the laptop. A very blurry image appeared on the screen. The IT person shrugged. “Hidden camera. There’s a few of them around.” They didn’t sound overly apologetic about it. They watched as one of the pair fussed around an acorn, then gasped.
One of the bar staff, clearing the table behind them also gasped. “That’s my aunt!” she exclaimed.
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