The Price of Your Closeness - She Came to Shut Down His Factory. She Never Expected Who She Would Trust - Laura Bellini

INTRO - The Price of Your Closeness - She Came to Shut Down His Factory. She Never Expected Who She Would Trust.INTROThe first thing I noticed when I walked into the plant was that nobody stopped working. I had expected silence. People standing against the walls with their arms folded across their chests, maybe a few angry looks, maybe one person bold enough to ask whether I slept well at night, making a living out of other people losing their jobs. I knew the routine. Eight years in restructuring had taught me not to take it personally. But here, the machines kept running. The metallic pounding of the presses blended with the steady hum of the ventilation system. Somewhere to my left, a pallet truck squealed, and from the open doors of the assembly hall came the short hiss of compressed air. Dozens of people carried on with their work as though they had no idea that the black folder tucked beneath my arm contained the timetable for winding down the plant. Or maybe they knew and had simply decided not to give me the satisfaction. I took off my glasses, which had immediately acquired a thin film of moisture. Outside, the March rain had turned the parking lot into a gray mirror. Inside, it was warm and smelled of machine oil, metal, and something faintly like freshly cut wood, even though the documents said this place had produced nothing but components for industrial equipment for the past thirty-seven years. "Ms. Natalia Radecka?" I turned. The man standing a few yards away did not look like someone who was about to lose his company. He wasn't wearing a suit. The sleeves of his dark shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and I could see a thin scratch on his forearm and a streak of black grease. He was tall, but that wasn't what caught my attention. He looked at me without haste, with the irritating calm of a man who had already decided exactly what kind of person I was and saw no reason to offer me the chance to appeal. "Yes." He came closer and held out his hand. "Tomasz Wierzbicki." I knew. I had read his name at least a hundred times over the past three weeks. President of the company, majority shareholder, thirty-eight years old. Automation engineer. Nine years ago, he had returned from Germany, taken over his uncle's debt-ridden plant, and increased revenue for the next six years. Then came two weaker contracts, rising energy costs, the loss of their biggest customer, and an investment loan the bank was no longer willing to renegotiate. According to my employer's report, the company no longer had an economic reason to exist. According to Tomasz Wierzbicki's hand, which I was shaking now, the report was not yet a verdict. "I thought you were coming tomorrow," he said. "My schedule says today." "The schedule I received says tomorrow." He let go of my hand. A fraction later than politeness required, but too soon for me to make anything more of it. Which was exactly why I remembered the moment. I opened my folder. "The updated schedule was emailed on Monday." "I didn't receive an update." "I can resend it." "Please do." He did not try to prove that I was lying. That would have been easier. Instead, he stepped aside and gestured toward the doors leading onto the production floor. "Since you're already here, I'll show you the plant." "I'd like to discuss the financial documents first." "I know." "Then?" He looked past me at the rows of machines and the people working at their stations. "If you're going to decide how much of this place gets sold for scrap, you should at least see what it is you're shutting down." There was no theatrics in the way he said it. No accusation. Just a fact. It irritated me more than it should have. "The decision to close the plant was made before I arrived." For the first time, something changed in his face. Not much. His jaw tightened. "By people who have never been here." "By the holder of the majority of the company's debt." "That isn't an answer." "It's the answer that matters legally." For a moment, we stood looking at each other over the noise of the machines. I was used to men trying to undermine my competence. They had different methods. They asked my age, addressed the junior analyst instead of me, explained their own balance sheets to me, or offered me coffee in a tone that suggested I ought to be the one bringing it. Tomasz Wierzbicki did none of those things. It was inconvenient. "All right," he said at last. "Then I'll show you something that matters financially." He headed toward the production hall. I hesitated for only a second before following him. At the first production line, he stopped beside a woman in a navy work coat. She looked to be around fifty and was checking small metal components with a caliper. "Mrs. Ewa has worked here for twenty-six years," Tomasz said. The woman looked up. "Twenty-seven in June." "If we make it that far," he replied. She didn't smile. Neither did I. "You don't have to do this," I said more quietly once we had walked away. "Do what?" "Introduce me to every employee so I'll remember their faces later." He stopped so abruptly that I almost walked into him. "Ms. Radecka, if you can genuinely lay off one hundred and fourteen people and forget every one of their faces the next day, there's nothing I can do to make this harder for you." I should have answered immediately. I didn't. One hundred and fourteen. The report said one hundred and seven. "How many employees do you have?" I asked. "One hundred and fourteen." "The documentation says one hundred and seven." This time, his gaze sharpened. "Documentation from when?" I took out my phone and opened the latest operational report. It was dated nine days earlier. "According to this, one hundred and seven full-time positions." Tomasz stared at the screen for several seconds without touching it. "That isn't our report." "The data was provided by management." "I am management." The noise of the production floor suddenly began to bother me. I scrolled down. Employee headcount was only one of dozens of fields. Inventory. Liabilities. Work in progress. Unused capacity. Tables that had formed the basis of the recommendation to shut the plant down. "Who else has access to this data?" I asked. Tomasz did not answer right away. He walked over to a metal cabinet against the wall, unlocked it, and took out a slim binder. He placed it on the inspection table between us. "Find the month when your report says we lost our biggest customer." I turned several pages. Found it. Then read it again. The contract that, according to the documentation, had been terminated in November had an amendment signed in December. The customer had not only continued the relationship but extended it for another eighteen months. Despite the heat of the hall, I felt cold. "Is this the original?" "Yes." "Why isn't it in the documentation?" "I've been trying to find that out for three weeks." I looked at him. For the first time, I no longer saw the owner of the company I had come here to shut down. I saw a man standing on the other side of a problem I might not understand at all yet. "Ms. Radecka," he said calmly. "Before you start selling my machines and handing out termination notices, answer one question for yourself." "What question?" He pushed the binder toward me. "Who wants you to believe so badly that there is nothing left here worth saving?"

Chapter 1 - Numbers That Don't Add Up - The Price of Your Closeness - She Came to Shut Down His Factory. She Never Expected Who She Would Trust.Chapter 1 - Numbers That Don't Add UpThe binder lay between us on the metal table, and for several seconds I stared at the signed amendment as though I could force the paper to admit which version of reality was true. The first page carried the name of the customer whose loss had supposedly been one of the main arguments for shutting the plant down. On the last were signatures, stamps, and a date more than a month after the cooperation had allegedly ended. It was not a letter of intent, a purchase order, or a promise. It was a binding contract. "I need a copy," I said. "You'll have one." Tomasz did not look like a man who had just won the first round. There was no satisfaction in him. He stood on the other side of the table with both hands resting against its edge, watching me so closely that it was beginning to irritate me. "And the complete documentation for this customer. Invoices, orders, correspondence, delivery confirmations." "You'll have those too." "And an up-to-date employee list." "Of course." I closed the binder. "Is there anything else?" "A lot more." "I'm asking whether you have another document that contradicts the material supplied to my firm this clearly." Tomasz raised his eyebrows slightly. "And if I do?" "Then it would probably be better to stop turning this into a surprise presentation and put everything on the table." For a moment, I thought he would answer with something equally sharp. Instead, he straightened and looked toward the production floor. "Let's go to my office." I disliked people taking control of meetings I was formally supposed to be running. I disliked it even more when they had a good reason. I put my phone into my bag, picked up my folder, and followed him. His office was on a mezzanine overlooking part of the production area. One wall was glass, giving him a view of almost the entire first line from his desk. Nothing inside matched the image of a company owner preparing to sell off assets. No family photographs, awards, leather chairs, or decorative executive toys. Two monitors, stacks of technical documentation, a mug of cold coffee, and a metal model of a gear assembly beside the keyboard. "Sit down," he said. "I'd rather work at the table." I pointed to the rectangular conference table by the window. "As you wish." He brought over three binders, then another two. When he set them in front of me, I noticed an old white scar on his right hand, close to the base of his thumb. It did not suit a company president. It suited a man who knew how to take a machine apart himself. That should not have interested me. I opened my laptop. "Let's start with November." Tomasz sat opposite me. For the next hour, we stopped fighting because the numbers turned out to be demanding enough on their own. I compared the reports in our system with the plant's accounting records. Tomasz opened folders, printed documents, explained the difference between contracted production and production actually released to the floor, and patiently answered questions neither of us could avoid. The first discrepancy concerned headcount. Not seven employees, as I had initially thought. Nine. Two people were on fixed-term contracts and, for reasons no one could explain, had dropped out of the summary. The other seven appeared in the HR system but not in the report sent to the creditor. The second discrepancy concerned inventory value. In the documents my firm had received, the component stock was valued almost 1.8 million zlotys lower than in the plant's own system. "In theory, that could be an updated impairment," I said. "There was no impairment." "I'll have to verify that." "Please do." He did not raise his voice. Not once. I was beginning to understand why that, specifically, was getting on my nerves. People in Tomasz's position usually tried desperately to convince me. He behaved as though he did not need me to believe him. He only needed me to keep looking long enough. "Who prepared the monthly reports for the fund?" I asked. "Adam Kulesza. Finance director." "Where is he?" "On sick leave since Monday." I looked up. "Coincidence?" "I don't know." "I have two emails from him in the documentation from last week." "He was still at work on Friday." "Have you been in touch with him?" "He isn't answering his phone." "Have you tried?" Tomasz looked at me in a way that made me hear how absurd the question sounded. "A dozen times." "He could genuinely be sick." "He could." I went back to the spreadsheet. The fact that the finance director had gone on sick leave immediately before my arrival was not proof of anything. It could be exactly what it looked like. A coincidence. The problem was that ever since I had walked into the plant, the coincidences had begun arranging themselves into a pattern that was far too regular. My boss's name appeared on my phone. Konrad Mejer. "I have to take this." Tomasz stood. "I'll leave you alone." "You don't have to." "I assume it'll be easier for you to say unpleasant things about me if I'm not here to hear them." I almost smiled. Almost. "I have no problem saying unpleasant things to people in their presence." "I noticed." He left. I answered the call. "Natalia, are you there?" "For an hour now." "And?" I looked at the five binders spread across the table. "We have a documentation problem." A short silence followed. "What kind of problem?" "The data we received doesn't match the source records." "In what areas?" "Headcount, inventory value, part of the revenue, and at least one major contract." Konrad sighed. "They'll show you anything if it delays the process." "The contract amendment has the customer's signature." "A document can be signed and terminated later." "I don't see a termination." "Then check." I knew that tone. Konrad used it when he considered a matter closed. "I intend to." "Natalia, you're not there to conduct a forensic audit. We have a committee resolution. The wind-down starts Monday." I looked through the glass at the production floor. Tomasz was talking to an operator at one of the machines. He was not standing beside him with folded arms. He had leaned over the control panel and was pointing at something. "If the recommendation was based on incorrect data, we have to report it." "If the data is incorrect." "I just told you it is." "You told me you're seeing discrepancies." I pressed my lips together. Konrad was good. That was why I had worked with him for six years. He could separate fact from interpretation faster than most people managed to confuse the two. "I need two days," I said. "You have a schedule." "I need two days to verify the sources." "You're supposed to inventory the assets today and start preparing the redundancy plan tomorrow." "And what if tomorrow it turns out we're shutting down a profitable company?" This time, the silence lasted longer. "That's a very large if." "Large enough." I heard papers shifting on his end. "Until five tomorrow. Not an hour longer. I'm not suspending the process, but you send no employee notices without my approval." "Fine." "And Natalia?" "Yes?" "Don't get pulled into their narrative. Company owners always have a story about why the numbers are unfair to them." He hung up before I could answer. I was left alone with the unpleasant feeling that a conversation that should have reassured me had done exactly the opposite. Tomasz returned a few minutes later carrying two bottles of water. He set one in front of me. "How much time do I have?" I looked at him. "You heard?" "A glass wall doesn't mean glass doors. I didn't hear anything. But I assume he wasn't calling to ask whether you were enjoying yourself." "Until five tomorrow." "For what?" "To check the documents." He sat down. "And after that?" "After that I'll know more." "That wasn't an answer." "It's the only one you're getting from me right now." For a moment, he turned the bottle between his hands. "Your boss knows about the amendment?" "Yes." "And he still wants to shut the plant down?" "He wants me to confirm whether the document changes the assessment." "Interesting phrasing." "Normal phrasing." "For you." I put down my pen. "Mr. Wierzbicki, if we're going to spend the next several hours going through data, I suggest we establish one thing. I am neither your opponent nor your ally." "I know." "You don't look like you know." "I look like a man whose plant is about to be shut down by the firm you work for." "I'm not the one who bought your debt." "But you're the one who came here to close the doors." I did not answer. Not because I lacked an argument. I had several. All of them were true, and all of them now sounded like ways of moving responsibility away from myself. Tomasz looked away first. "I'll show you the warehouse," he said. "If the inventory value is understated, that's the easiest place to verify it." We went downstairs. At the warehouse entrance, he handed me a reflective vest and safety glasses. "You're not going in without these." "Formally, I have full access." "Formally, I'm responsible for safety on this site." I took the glasses. "Do you always need the last word?" "I like people leaving this place with the same number of eyes they had when they came in." This time I smiled before I could stop myself. He noticed. Of course he noticed. He did not comment, which was worse than if he had. The warehouse turned out to be much larger than the photographic documentation I had received before coming here suggested. The racks reached almost to the ceiling, and neatly labeled containers sat in rows on pallets. Tomasz called over the warehouse manager, Paweł Rosiński, and asked him to generate the current inventory balance. "How long will that take?" I asked. "Two minutes," Paweł replied. I looked at Tomasz. "My materials say the inventory count requires at least two days." "A complete physical count does. You can have the system balance immediately." "Who gave them two days?" "Kulesza." Another name written in invisible ink onto my growing list of questions. Paweł returned with a printout. The figure at the bottom was even higher than the one I had seen earlier. "What accounts for the difference?" I asked. "We received a component delivery for Line C this morning." "For which order?" Paweł pointed to a code. I wrote it down. "Can I see the customer's order?" "Sure." Tomasz stepped closer. "That's for the contract we supposedly don't have." I looked at him. He was close enough that I could smell his shirt, clean and cool, oddly distinct amid the oil and metal. I took half a step back, more from a need to reclaim my space than because he had done anything wrong. His gaze moved across my face, but he did not follow me. I appreciated that more than I wanted to. "I didn't say you didn't have it," I replied. "The fund did." "The fund received documents." "The fund received some documents." "That's exactly what I'm trying to establish." "And I'm trying to tell you that someone has spent months constructing a picture of a company that doesn't exist." "That is a serious accusation." "I know." "Do you have proof?" "I have a plant that doesn't operate according to the paperwork, and employees who don't exist according to the paperwork." I had no good answer to that. We returned to his office after three. I was getting hungry, but I had no intention of taking a break. I had less than a day to review material that would normally be analyzed by an entire team. Tomasz took a paper-wrapped sandwich from a drawer. "No." "I haven't said anything yet." "You were going to offer me food." "I was going to eat my own lunch." Heat rose into my face. Tomasz unwrapped the sandwich. "But since you've raised the subject, there's a vending machine downstairs." "I know." "The coffee is terrible." "I'll survive." "That must be the professional motto of restructuring consultants." I looked at him. "Are you always this courteous to people trying to save your company?" He stopped eating. "I thought you weren't my ally." He had me. I didn't like it. I turned my laptop toward him. "Look." On the screen was a copy of the monthly report stored in our repository. His name appeared at the bottom. Tomasz leaned over the table. "What is this?" "The January report." "I can see that." "It has your signature." He studied the document for longer. "No." "No what?" "I didn't sign this." I enlarged the section. "It looks like your signature." "Because it is my signature." "You just said-" "I said I didn't put it on this document." He pulled the laptop closer. His arm came near mine, but this time I did not move away. We both stared at the screen. "Where could it have come from?" I asked. "Dozens of other documents. Resolutions. Contracts. Powers of attorney." "Do you use scanned signatures?" "For some internal documents. Not reports sent outside the company." "This one was submitted as a PDF." "By me?" I opened the file properties. Author: AW_Finance. "No," I said. "Through the finance department account." Tomasz straightened. "Kulesza." "Or someone with access to the account." "Adam has access." "Who else?" He did not answer. I looked at him. "Mr. Wierzbicki?" "Me." For the first time all day, I saw something in him that was neither calm nor anger. Caution. "Do you have the password?" "No. I have administrator privileges." "Who knows that?" "Several people." "So this document does not prove Kulesza did it." "No." "Nor does it prove you did." "No." I closed the file. "But it does prove that someone sent a report bearing your signature which, according to you, you never approved." Tomasz sat opposite me. "Are you starting to understand now?" I did not answer immediately. I looked at the man I had been supposed to treat, only that morning, as the owner of a company unable to meet its obligations. Now he sat across from me with documents between us suggesting that someone might have spent months deliberately making his company look worse than it was. Might. That word was everything. I had no proof of fraud. I had discrepancies. Suspicious reports. An absent finance director. A signature that might have been copied. And a man who had just as much reason to convince me he had been deceived as someone else might have had to close his plant. "I'm starting to understand that I don't know who to trust," I said. Tomasz looked directly into my eyes. "That, at least, is sensible."

Chapter 2 - Traces of Other People's Decisions - The Price of Your Closeness - She Came to Shut Down His Factory. She Never Expected Who She Would Trust.Chapter 2 - Traces of Other People's DecisionsAt five thirty, the plant began to empty out, but I was still sitting in Tomasz's office. The afternoon shift was scheduled until ten, so the production hall did not fall silent completely. There were simply fewer people, and the rhythm of the machines became less intense. Beyond the glass wall, the world looked different from the way it had a few hours earlier. Not like a company on the edge. Like a company at work. Eleven printouts, two binders, my laptop, and a notebook lay across the table. With every page I filled, the notebook looked less like preparation for a liquidation and more like a list of questions for an investigation no one had asked me to conduct. Tomasz came back from the floor and set another folder beside me. "Deliveries for the last three months." "All of them?" "Everything we have in the system." "That is not an answer that reassures me." "It doesn't reassure me either." He sat across the table. He had changed his shirt. Only then did I realize how quickly I had become accustomed to rolled-up sleeves and traces of grease on his hands. Now he wore a dark sweater that softened some of his severity without making him any easier to read. "Kulesza still isn't answering?" I asked. "No." "Does he have family?" "A wife." "Have you spoken to her?" "I'm not going to chase a sick employee through his family." "Even if he may have falsified reports?" Tomasz leaned back in his chair. "You just said we don't know that yet." "I'm checking whether you remember your own arguments." "I remember all of them." I already knew there would be no safely superficial conversation with him. I opened the new folder. For the next forty minutes, we compared deliveries with the reports. The longer I looked, the more the pattern irritated me. In December, the actual order level was eleven percent higher than what had been reported to the creditor. In January, thirteen percent. In February, almost fifteen. That did not mean the company was healthy. Energy costs were still high. The debt was real. Two production lines were operating below profitable utilization. The plant needed capital and time it might not get. But the difference between a company in difficulty and a company with no future was enormous. And someone had been moving Wierzbicki Automatyka toward the second category with remarkable consistency. "Why didn't you notice earlier?" I asked. Tomasz did not answer right away. It was the first question all day that truly closed him off. "I noticed something was wrong." "When?" "In January." "And what did you do?" "I asked Adam for an explanation." "What explanation did he give you?" "Timing differences in how contracts were booked." "You believed him?" "Yes." "Why?" He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek. "Because he's worked with me for seven years." "That isn't a reason." "It was for me then." There was no defensiveness in his voice. If anything, the anger seemed directed at himself. "When did it stop being enough?" "When the fund terminated the restructuring agreement." I put down my pen. "For breaching the covenants?" "Among other things." "The reports show you exceeded the permitted net debt-to-EBITDA ratio." "According to our data, we didn't." "By how much?" "We were just under the limit." That changed more than anything else I had seen. "Do you have the calculation?" "Yes." "Why wasn't it sent to the fund?" Tomasz looked at me for several seconds. "It was." I felt that familiar pressure beneath my ribs. Not fear. Something much more dangerous in my profession. Interest. "When?" "February twelfth." "To whom?" "Directly to the analyst responsible for our portfolio, with Mr. Mejer copied." I went still. "Konrad Mejer?" "I assume you don't know another Mejer working on this matter?" I ignored his tone. "Do you have that email?" Tomasz stood, went to his desk, and searched the computer for a moment. "I have it in Sent." He turned the screen toward me. The email existed. Konrad's address was in the CC field. That did not mean he had read it. He received hundreds of messages. It did not even mean the attachment contained the correct calculations. But I could no longer treat the entire situation as one finance director's mistake. "Will you forward this to me?" "If you give me an address no one else can access." He looked up. "Work or personal?" "Work." "You just said you wanted an address only you could access." "I'm the only person with access to my account." "Your administrator does too." "We're not running a company in one of your spy movies." "This morning, we weren't running one where someone signs reports in my name either." I felt a flare of irritation because he was right to a degree I did not want to acknowledge. "Send it to my work address. I'll secure the message." Tomasz did it while I watched. When my computer gave a quiet chime, I opened the attachment. The spreadsheet was detailed. Formulas. Assumptions. Actual EBITDA. Repayment schedule. Sales forecast. At first glance, it all made sense. "I need to verify the sources," I said. "I knew you were going to say that." "Because it's the correct answer." "I'm not criticizing it." "It sounded like criticism." "Do you often hear criticism before anyone says it?" I looked at him. He wasn't smiling. He had hit the mark for the second time that day. "Do you often analyze people instead of answering questions?" "Only when those people are analyzing my company." "That must be exhausting." "Today it is." I did not know whether he meant me, the situation, or both. My phone vibrated on the table. A message from Konrad. "Status?" I typed: "Verifying source data. Some key reports may be inconsistent with the operational system. I'll update you in the morning." His reply came immediately. "Do not expand scope." I stared at those three words longer than necessary. "Something wrong?" Tomasz asked. I turned the screen away. "None of your business." He did not push. The fact that he respected the boundary without so much as half a comment impressed me more than it should have. I closed the laptop. "That's enough for today." Tomasz looked at his watch. "It's six twenty." "I have a hotel." "Where?" "In the center." "Which one?" "That is still none of your business." Something that might have been a smile touched the corner of his mouth. "I'm asking because the road over the viaduct closes after five. If you're staying at one of the hotels by the market square, your navigation may send you down the truck detour." "Why does everything in this company sound like a test?" "Not everything." "What doesn't?" "Fires." I slid the documents into my folder. "What about fires?" "We don't test anything during fires. We run immediately." I laughed briefly before I could stop myself. Tomasz looked at me with unmistakable surprise. "So you can." "Can what?" "Nothing." "Finish the sentence." "I was going to say you can laugh." "Very perceptive." "After today, I was beginning to have doubts." I stood. "Tomorrow at eight." "I'll be here." "I need the production manager, chief accountant, and whoever is responsible for procurement." "I'll arrange it." "Without preparing them." His expression hardened. "I don't coach my employees on what to say." "I didn't say you did." "You implied it." "I'm protecting the process." Tomasz walked to the door. "And who protects the process from the people running it?" I did not stop. "Tomorrow at eight." The hotel was small and considerably better than its facade suggested. The room smelled of detergent and wood, the radiator worked with unnecessary enthusiasm, and through the window I could see the market square, a few empty tables outside a café, and wet cobblestones reflecting car lights. I took off my blazer, but instead of showering, I opened my laptop again. I had a habit Konrad had taught me early in my career: when the data stopped matching, go back to the last moment when it still did. For Wierzbicki Automatyka, that moment was October. November looked worse, but still coherent. December was the first month when the discrepancies stopped fitting inside reasonable explanations. They grew in January. In February, they led to the termination of the agreement. I drew a timeline on a sheet of paper. October - correct data. November - customer reported as lost, though the customer later signs an amendment. December - understated inventory. January - report carrying Tomasz's signature, which he says he did not place there. February - covenant breach according to the creditor's report. March - closure decision. They did not look like random mistakes. They looked like direction. At nine, my friend Alicja called. I rejected the call. She called again. I answered. "Are you alive?" she asked. "Yes." "Then why haven't you replied for six hours?" "I'm working." "So, standard. Where are you?" "In a hotel." "Again?" "It's a business trip, Ala." "I didn't realize restructuring included marriage to Excel." I rolled my eyes. "I have a difficult case." "You always have a difficult case." "This one is different." I sat on the edge of the bed. For a moment, I considered how much I could tell her. Almost nothing, in the end. "The documents don't match." "And that's why you sound like you've just found a body?" "Don't be dramatic." "Natalia, I've known you for thirteen years. When something is just a work problem, you start talking faster. When something actually gets to you, you speak more slowly." I looked at my notes. "Someone may have manipulated the reports deliberately." "Then report it." "First I need to know whether it's true." Alicja was quiet for a moment. "And there's a man." I frowned. "What?" "There's a man." "Where did that come from?" "Your tone." "I don't have a tone." "You have a tone." "The owner of the plant." "Good-looking?" "That doesn't matter." "So, very." "Good night, Ala." "Natalia." "What?" "Don't fall in love with the man you're supposed to fire." "I don't fire owners." "Even worse." I hung up. For a minute, I stared at the phone screen. Then I went back to the spreadsheets. At seven fifty the next morning, I was already in the plant parking lot. The rain had stopped. The air was sharp and clean. Milky fog hung over the roofs of the production halls, and a thin thread of steam rose from the boiler house chimney. Tomasz was waiting by the entrance. "You're early." "So are you." "I work here." "Today, so do I." He handed me a visitor badge. "You can move around the administrative section without an escort. Someone still has to accompany you on the production floor." "Still worried about my eyes?" "I still have the number of them on record." We went inside. My first interview was with the chief accountant, Joanna Milewska. She was around fifty, with short gray hair and a way of looking at people that immediately reminded me of my high school mathematics teacher. "Mr. Wierzbicki said you have questions," she began. "A lot." "Good." Tomasz moved to sit beside me. "I'd prefer to speak with Mrs. Milewska alone." He did not protest. He simply stood. "I'll be next door." I noted that too. When the door closed, I slid a copy of the January report toward Joanna. "Do you recognize this document?" She put on her glasses. "Yes." "Did you prepare it?" "Part of the source data." "What does 'part' mean?" "I prepared the profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and liabilities. Adam assembled the report for the fund." "Adam Kulesza?" "Yes." "Did you see the final version?" "Not always." "Why?" Joanna took off her glasses. "Because creditor reporting was removed from my responsibilities in the fall." "By whom?" "Mr. Kulesza." "With Tomasz's approval?" "I don't know." I wrote that down. "Do these figures agree with the books?" I pointed to the inventory line. Joanna looked at it and immediately shook her head. "No." "By how much?" "I'd have to check that month, but definitely not." "Did you report the discrepancy?" "I never saw this version." "And today?" Joanna pressed her lips together. "Today, I'm reporting it to you." The sentence was simple, but it changed the atmosphere in the room. "Could Mr. Kulesza alter the data independently?" "In a report he was preparing? Of course." "And in the accounting system?" "Not without leaving a trace." "Has anyone checked the logs?" "I don't know." "Who has permissions?" "IT, Mr. Kulesza, me in a limited capacity, and Mr. Wierzbicki administratively." The same list again. "Do you know about the amendment involving the customer reported as lost in November?" "Of course." "Was the revenue from that contract recorded normally?" "Yes." "Then why did the reports say the contract was lost?" Joanna looked as though something had just come back to her. "Adam said the fund only counted agreements with guaranteed volume." "The amendment specifies a minimum volume." "I know." "Did you tell him?" "Yes." "What did he say?" "That he had spoken to the fund's analyst and they wanted to look at it differently." A cold pressure formed in my stomach. "When was that?" "Early December." I wrote down the date. After the interview with Joanna, I asked Tomasz to take me to the financial archive. "What for?" "I want to see the paper reports from before the changes." "They're scanned." "I want the paper copies." "You really don't trust anyone." "You warned me that was sensible." He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. The archive was in an older part of the building, beyond the tool room. The corridor was narrow, fluorescent-lit, and far too cold. Tomasz unlocked the door. Metal shelves filled with binders lined the room. "Which year?" "This one and last." He handed me the first binder. When I climbed onto a low plastic step to reach another one, the base shifted across the smooth floor. Tomasz caught my forearm. Not hard. Just enough to stop me. With his other hand, he steadied the step. "I've got you," he said. For one brief second, neither of us moved. His fingers wrapped around my arm through the fabric of my blazer. There was nothing intimate about it, and yet I was suddenly acutely aware of how close he was. I could see lighter threads in his irises and the trace of fatigue beneath his eyes. "I'm fine now," I said. He let go immediately. Without hesitation. Without letting the touch linger one second longer. That was exactly what made me remember it too clearly. I stepped down. "I could have managed." "I can see that." "Then why-" "Because you were falling." "I was not falling." "Of course." "You're impossible." "That isn't the first report where that information appears." I laughed. And once again, I saw that brief flash of surprise cross his face. I turned back toward the shelves before the moment could become anything more. We went through the paper records for almost an hour. In the December binder, I found a document that had not been included in the electronic repository supplied to my firm. An offer to purchase one of the plant's main production lines. Company: Erdmann Polska. Date: December fifteenth. Price: almost thirty percent below book value, but clearly above the liquidation value later entered in the fund's report. "Did you know about this?" I asked. Tomasz looked at the paper. His expression changed immediately. "No." "The document is addressed to management." "I've never seen it." At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note. "Discussed. No interest." Beside it were initials. AK. Adam Kulesza. "Did he have authority to reject offers to purchase company assets?" I asked. "No." "To conduct negotiations?" "Not without my approval." I turned the page. There was a second sheet. A brief technical description. The line's serial number. Exactly the same line whose value had been understated most heavily in the liquidation report. Tomasz read it with me. "Who valued the machines?" he asked. I knew the answer. I did not want to say it before checking. I took out my phone, opened the report, and scrolled to the first page. Valuation firm: K&M Industrial Advisory. "Do you know them?" I asked. "Yes." "How?" "Erdmann uses them when buying machinery." I looked at him. "How do you know that?" "Two years ago, we negotiated the sale of an old line. Erdmann was one of the interested buyers. K&M did the assessment for them." The archive was quiet. So quiet I could hear ventilation running somewhere behind the wall. In my head, points began connecting that I would have preferred not to connect yet. Understated production. Understated inventory. A false picture of a lost customer. A report bearing Tomasz's signature. Terminated financing. A competitor's offer for a specific machine. A valuer that had previously worked with that same competitor. It still was not proof. But for the first time, it looked like something larger than incompetence. Tomasz's phone vibrated. He looked at the screen. His face hardened. "What?" I asked. He turned the phone toward me. The message had come from an unknown number. One sentence. "If you want to keep the plant, stop digging into December." I read it twice. "Have you received anything from this number before?" "First time." "Don't reply." "I wasn't planning to." "Take a screenshot and don't delete anything." "You're giving me orders now?" "At this moment, yes." He looked at me for a long second. Then he took the screenshot. "What now?" I drew in a breath. Only the day before, I had known exactly why I had come here. I was supposed to shut down an unprofitable plant, organize its assets, and prepare the wind-down process. Now I stood with its owner in a cold archive, holding a document I should never have found and staring at a message someone should never have sent. But the worst thing was something else. I did not trust Tomasz. I couldn't. Yet for the first time, I was beginning to suspect that of everyone involved in this situation, he might be the person I would need to trust most. "Now," I said, "we find out exactly what happened in December."