All in a day’s work ( Unpublished excerpt from Twice Blessed)- Part 3/3

Part 3: The Shocking Confession

Read Part 1: The Acrimonious Beginning

and Part 2: The Sting Operation

before reading this final and concluding part of the short story

I stood still a few minutes, shaken by what I had just learnt. I did not know what to make of it. “Disaster” was beginning to take new meaning, every second. So, there had been no leak, just a plagiary. “Just” being the understatement of the year. What was Prabhat even thinking? He was clearly not capable of thinking at all. Feeling weak in the knees, I sat on the stairs, nearby.

I wondered if I was better off knowing what had transpired or not knowing. I felt lost and cheated. A few seconds ago, I had no clue about what had happened and I was charging full throttle, all guns blaring, on a fishing expedition, to unearth the truth.

How was I to share my findings with The Boss?

My phone buzzed, all of a sudden. Prabhat.

“Where are you?” were my first words, on picking the call.

“I am just entering office.”

“Ok, I’ll be there” I replied curtly. I got up slowly and found my bearings. I had wandered behind the building, while speaking to Swarna on the phone. I made my way back to the real world where we had to face the music for our actions.

Prabhat was at his desk. I walked up to him,

“Come along Bhat” I said to him and then without stopping I continued walking towards The Boss’s cabin.

“What’s up Tam?” he said, following me.

“Got to clear some matters with The Boss.” I said, without turning around. Alok was busy. The PR guys were hashing out options. An intense argument was in progress and I barged in with a knock on the door.

“What the hell, Tamma…….” He didn’t finish.

“This is priority, Alok. Trust me; you need to hear this, now.” I butt in with a no nonsense tone.

“I am with the PR guys,” He began and once again, I interrupted him.

“Vital info, Alok. You will need it for your PR campaign.”

He asked the PR team to stay put and got up himself. He told them, he would be back in a minute or so and headed for the conference room, asking us to follow.

This better be good, Tamannah. I left a very important discussion just to hear you out.” He said taking a seat and indicating we make ourselves comfortable too.

“I found out how this fiasco happened.” I blurted out, not knowing how and where to begin.

“What?” Alok jumped, angry and agitated, yet disbelieving.

Prabhat looked as though he would faint. He turned a deathly white.

“How did you find out? Who is the traitor?”

“You can judge for yourself, for now Prabhat will tell us where he went, after I left?”

“Are you joking, Tamannah? Do I look like I care about that right now?”

“No Alok, you are not getting me. Prabhat needs to tell us something first. I will then tell you the complete details. I am not wasting your time.” Turning to Prabhat, “Do tell” was all I said, giving him a hard state, so he knew that I knew.

Turning paler, if that was even possible, he said rather meekly, “I went to meet a friend.”

“When there was so much going on, you went to meet a friend?”

“I needed to catch some air, too Tam.”

“Does your friend have a name, Bhat?”

“Yes, her name is S.Rao.”

“S.Rao? Girlfriend?”

“No, she’s married. She’s just a friend.”

“Is this going anywhere, Tamannah?” Alok interrupted, looking angrier by the minute.

“Two minutes, Alok. Almost there!”

“So S.Rao, she’s working?”I continued, addressing Prabhat, this time.

“Yes”, he replied.

“Where?”

“The Catalyst” he answered, looking briefly at his brother-in-law.

The Boss’s reaction was instantaneous. He jumped up from his place, Rushed to Prabhat and almost yanked up him up. Catching hold of him, the Boss, bit out. “You are the leak?”

“That’s not quite how it happened, Alok. Please put him down. Let him speak.”

“Tamannah, what are you saying? This rat has all but ruined me and you want me to let him speak for himself?” he bellowed.

“Alok, please, just listen to me, “I implored and finally he relented.

Prabhat looked shit scared, to put it mildly. He eyes, begged me to bail him out, one last time! Sadly, not this time. There was little really that I could do, except insist he spit out the truth. Seeing, that I was not about to come to his rescue, he began, haltingly, stuttering and stammering, as little.

“It’s really not how it seems. I, I . . . (long pause, waiting for the roof to fall, I think. Then he began again.), I, Swarna and I are classmates. She moved to town recently, after her marriage. I, (starting trouble, continues. Another long pause), met her one day at the mall and we, we reconnected. She had joined The Catalyst and I worked here. So we used to chat a lot about our respective jobs.

“She, she (he took a big gulp of water, stalling), she showed me the crackle campaign and told me her client had rejected it. She was distraught. Both of us thought, it was a marvellous idea. She was very angry with the client for rejecting it. She was going to throw away the whole thing, her first pitch that had failed. I took it and told her I would keep it as a souvenir. I told her that one day, decades from now, I would gift it to her, and surprise her. She gave it to me and left.

“We both forgot about it. Then, we got the new client and you said I could handle it. I was thrilled. I had so many ideas. You remember? But somehow or the other they all got rejected. Then, I remembered the “Crackle campaign” that Swarna had made.

“She had made it for our client’s competitor so it could be used as such. I thought, why not. I thought, I would tell you after the campaign became a hit. I also told Swarna, that I had a surprise for her. Something that would blow her away totally. I was going to bring her here and introduce her to everyone and tell that she was the one who actually came up with it.

“The day of our campaign launch happens to be her birthday, so I thought; this would be a perfect gift. Her first, pitch had been used after all. A few months back she informed me that after a million choices, the client had gone back to the original idea. I never realised that the ‘crackle campaign’ was the original idea.

“That’s how it happened. The whole of it. I never intended for you to get into trouble. I would never hurt The Place. You gave me a chance when even my dad wouldn’t. It’s not something, I can ever take lightly.”Tears were rolling down his cheeks and he looked pathetic.

The Boss sat down heavily, at a loss for words. He did not know what to do with his brother-in-law. Clearly, he had not intended malice; nevertheless, what he had done was wrong. “Why didn’t you tell me all this in the morning? Didn’t you see how much trouble The Place was in? Didn’t you see me questioning all your colleagues? I asked you specifically if you had anything to do with this, even inadvertently and you did not come clean. You could have said something at least when I grilled both you and Tamannah this afternoon. At least, she would have been spared all the abuse she had to listen to, on your account.”

“I was totally not expecting this to happen. Caught off guard, I chickened out every time I tried to walk into your room and tell you. Besides, I wanted to speak to Swarna, before telling you. I just returned from meeting her. I was planning to tell you tonight, somehow. By the time Tam, found out, I don’t know how.”

“You did not tell her?”

“No!”

“How did you find out, Tam?” He asked looking at me, in surprise.

“Ahm.. it’s a long  story Alok and I did not use the most ethical of means, I must add.” I said, edgily. Now it was my turn to face the music.

“What have you done?” He said, looking tensed all over again.

“I made a couple of calls, in false pretence.”

“Tamannah, I hope you have not done anything that will put you or The Place or your family in a spot.”

“No , No Alok, nothing like that. I called, the competitor’s marketing person, introducing myself as a headhunter. He gave me Swarna’s name and office number. I called her and told her I was Prabhat’s mother, threatened her with legal action and she came clean.” I finished in a hurry, editing my version, sufficiently.

“You did what?” both the men reacted in unison.

“You threatened her with legal action, for what?” Alok asked.

“Well you see Alok, I called the marketing guy. . .”

“How did you get his name and number?” Alok asked, sounding more curious than agitated.

“I got his name from LinkedIn and his office number is listed in the directory. I called the office and asked them to transfer my call to him.”

“Oh!” they said, once again in unison. One tone was in awe and the other suspicious.

“I told him, I liked the campaign and had a client who liked it as well. He told me he wasn’t looking for a change. In the process, he let it slip that the campaign had been finalised six months before. We did not even have our client on board then, I think. I needed to glean more details, but I couldn’t get it out of him, as a head hunter. So I did the next best thing. I got a reference.

“I asked him for the details of the person working on the campaign for The Catalyst. He gave me her name and office number with extension, quite happily, I must say. He even offered me a job!!”  I beamed at Alok, to lighten the mood a little. If he continued in his present agitated state, I was sure to get the third degree with what I was about to tell next.”

“He oferred you a job?” Prabhat, exclaimed looking more and more like a fan meeting his superstar for the first time. He did make me feel like a Bollywood Khan, but the Boss was the ultimate reality check. His sober face gave nothing away. Was he happy or not, I couldn’t tell.

I continued on a cautious note, “I checked out Swarna in LinkedIn and observed she was friends with Prabhat. I realised, she was the link. I just did not know what had transpired between them. I had to get it out of her without her knowledge. So I told her I was Prabhat’s mother.

“I informed her that you had threatened legal action against him for the fiasco, which you had Alok, just this afternoon, I just did not tell her what the actual fiasco was. I let her believe that I already knew. I told her that Prabhat was not answering my call and if any legal action did happen, I would make it my business to name her, since she was in it just as much as he was.

“She tried shrugging me off, but I persisted and in the end, she told me she had done nothing wrong, by sharing something rejected storyboards with her friend. She also said she did not know that Prabhhat had used them. Then she banged the phone on me. That’s all I gleaned out of my fishing expedition.”

“You thought I was a traitor when you asked me to come to with you just now?” Bhat said looking hurt and forsaken. His most adorable look.

“You did all this, on a hunch?” Alok said, looking unhappy.

“Alok, you said something this afternoon that got me thinking.”

“I was in a bad state this afternoon.”

“We all were, but you were right, this project was my responsibility and I needed to do something, at least post-mortem. I couldn’t work normally, everyday, suspecting each person in this office and Bhat, yes; I thought you were in the wrong, somehow. I found it hard to believe that you could do something underhanded, but still you were clearly to blame for what happened, of that I was sure. That’s why I called you straight to meet Alok.”

“Did you use the office phone for all this?” Alok said, suddenly, looking ready to explode.

“Nope, I used my mobile.”

“You called a random person, took my mother-in-law’s name and threatened her?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t you have any sense of consequences? What if she had called her superior or she may still call you on your number. She may take legal action against my mother-in-law, because she believes that is the person she spoke to.”

“Alok, stop looking at the dark side of things. This mystery is over. I can call and apologize to Swarna, if you wish. I will tell her it was a prank I had played to give Prabhat coronary. I am sure we will never be friends, but she will be relieved. Look at the bright side, you won’t need to look at everyone with suspicion and you can decide exactly how to manage the PR angle.”

He did not immediately respond. Then he got up, looking all serous and said, “Ok, please call the girl, and apologize. I don’t want any ramifications of your actions, to affect anyone, including you. And you,” he said, turning to Prabhat, “I want you to go home and think about what you have done. I am still not sure, if I can forgive you and let you work here. We will talk, when I get home. For now, I need you to leave.”

Saying as much, he walked to the door and stepped out. Then turned back, smiling he added.”Oh, and Tam, I am amazed at what you have accomplished with just a couple of phone calls. Thank you. Because of you, I can at least me sure of my staff. I really appreciate everything you have done. In a few minutes, I will call a staff meeting and share the details with everyone. After all, they have also had a nightmarish day, with me. So they deserve to know and you deserve an applause. But, in future, before you go on these fishing expeditions do consult me; there may be a more correct path to take.”

“Aye, aye, captain” I beamed.

“Maybe it’s time I shifted you to client acquisition,” were his parting words.

Hope you enjoyed the story. Read more about Tamannah at , Twice Blessed – A Sneak Peek !

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