Page 31 of Glow

“It’s all arranged,” Scott said. “I spoke to Barry. He said we can use his store cupboard. Bloody open-plan offices don’t lend themselves to undercover missions.”

“That’s handy though,” Prin replied. “The main drive for the CCTV is in there too. I installed it last year. Barry wouldn’t have it anywhere else.”

“That figures.”

Spending Saturday in a cleaning store cupboard with Scott hadn’t featured high on Prin’s list of ideal weekend activities. Still, he could think of worse things.

“All we need is to lure Elliott in,” Scott said.

Prin frowned. “Don’t you think he’d come anyway? If he’s the thief.”

Scott clapped him on the shoulder. “Prin. You have to think like him. If he chooses, he’ll come later this evening when that kids fun place has closed. Less chance of witnesses. I’m up for a stakeout but not all weekend. No, if we force his hand, he’ll probably kill two birds with one stone.”

“Wow, you are very good at this.”

“Thanks. I think. So what can we do?”

Prin considered it for a second. It couldn’t be something that Elliott would be able to fix easily from home.

“It has to be a server,” Prin declared.

“Lead the way.”

Prin stole across the office space. He knew he technically didn’t have to be quiet—the silence was deafening—but it felt appropriate.

When they reached the server room, Prin inputted the code.

“I’ll wait for you here,” Scott said. “Do you need a hammer or anything?”

“A hammer?”

Scott held his hands up. “I don’t know what you’re doing to break it.”

“Scott,” Prin said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “If I smash a server up, we’ll have every member of the IT department here in no time. I’m just going to disable a few things. Enough for it to be Elliott’s problem.”

“Fine,” Scott replied, folding his arms. “Do your techy thing.”

Prin went inside the tiny server room. He had always found it quite comforting with the whirring of the machines that kept Pleasure Seekers going. He would use the one that had gone down the other day. Elliott had been given a roasting by Richard for letting that happen. Elliott would be scared of it happening again.

He removed just enough connections for it to trigger Elliott’s alarm. He’d been planning it and hoped it would be explained away that whoever had been fixing the server the other day hadn’t replaced them properly.

He made his way back into the main office where Scott was sitting on a desk, fiddling with his phone.

“Come on then,” Prin said.

The store cupboard was near to reception.

“It’s a shame we have to do it this way,” Scott said as they headed towards the main doors. “It’s going to be very cosy.”

They both shared a look.

Thank goodness Prin had chosen his best aftershave that morning.

Scott opened the door.

“Bloody hell,” Scott said.

The space was full of cleaning equipment, paper towels and a stack of railway magazines.