He shook his head. ‘Sorry. Went to bed at one, and four hours is not enough.’
I had told him many times over the years how important eight hours was, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to bring it up again now. The time on his laptop, which was lying open on the counter next to his coffee, said 6.15. I would have yawned if I hadn’t been hit by an adrenaline rush.
‘Thanks for coming in.’ He slumped against the worktop. ‘This is so bloody annoying. I thought we were untouchable when it came to security.’
It broke my heart a little bit, seeing him look this defeated. To my knowledge, this was the first time Level had ever let him down. Even when we didn’t know whether we’d ever find funding, Rory had been unfailingly positive. I was an old timer by now, when it came to wanting to press delete on the whole thing. I fought the feeling, taking charge.
‘Well, clearly not. But we don’t fully know what we’re dealing with yet. That’s the priority.’
I pulled his laptop towards me, taking a sip of his coffee and wincing. No sugar.
‘On it.’ He moved to the sugar canister, getting another mug out for me without second-guessing.
I found the thread on Twitter, which wasn’t hard. All you had to do was type in ‘Level’, and you were directed to a user profile for a girl called Polly. Nineteen thousand followers. ‘Polly’ had tweeted the following at one o’clock this morning:
@PollyOSullivan: What will it take for dating apps to take safety seriously?
‘Identity verification systems’ are complete bullshit.
When someone had asked what happened, she’d replied:
@PollyOSullivan: Imagine turning up to meet your ‘perfect’ 24-year-old match and finding a fifty-something-year-old man sitting in the corner of the bar, watching you.
The exchange had sixty replies and had been retweeted over a hundred times.
‘Shit.’
That engrossed in reading the chain, I hadn’t noticed Rory come up behind me, his breath hot on my neck. ‘I know. Fuck.’
I shivered, my skin burning at the surprise contact. Breathe, Penny, breathe. What was up with me?
I closed the screen and manoeuvred my chair to increase the space between us, trying not to look him in the eye. ‘Okay, so it’s not ideal that she seems to be an influencer. How did this happen?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’ Rory rubbed at his eyes. ‘We’ve got to talk to Dexter and Harriet.’
As if the universe had decided to finally give us a break this morning, we heard the office door open. ‘Hello? Where are you both?’
We exchanged a look of relief. Harriet. ‘In here.’
She strode in, heels clicking against the tiles. Her hair was in another slicked-back ponytail, and she was wearing red lipstick. I looked down at my own outfit, which consisted of a white V-neck (that could well have come from the dirty laundry basket, if I was completely honest), a pair of old grey jeans and my Air Forces. I’d left my hair in its wildest form, and Rory looked similarly rumpled, in a hoodie and black jeans. I was pretty sure there was a toothpaste stain on them. We both stared at her. There was no way she was the sleep-deprived parent among us.
‘What?’ She patted her hair self-consciously. ‘I find the best way to start handling a crisis is to present yourself like there isn’t a crisis at all.’
‘Clearly’ – Rory gestured between the two of us – ‘we have exactly the same motto.’
I pulled a face at him. ‘Do I not look like I’m dressed for a crisis?’
‘Your T-shirt is on inside out.’
I felt behind my neck, my fingers trying and failing to make contact with the fabric tag.
‘Need some help?’
I thought of his breath on my neck a moment earlier. ‘No. I mean, thanks but I’m fine.’ I finally made contact with the tag. ‘Oops. I got dressed in the dark.’
‘The second way I like to start handling a crisis,’ Harriet said, pulling a stool up to the worktop and taking out her own computer, ‘is for you two to stop bickering, or whatever it is that you do.’
Her fingers flew across the keys.
‘How on earth are you this awake?’ I had been about to make her a coffee, but it was clear that she was wired without it.
‘I have twins, Penny. Twins. Once you’ve seen what I’ve seen, nothing feels like a true crisis any more. And when you’ve been woken up at three o’clock every morning to banish the monster under the bed, time becomes meaningless.’
Her eyes tracked her screen as she took in the thread.
‘Okay, so first of all, we need to reach out to Polly and check that she’s safe.’ Harriet pulled out the A4 notebook that she carried everywhere with her, writing up a list of bullet points. ‘Then we need to issue some kind of statement and hold ourselves accountable for what went wrong. Reassure people that we’ll be doing everything in our power to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. The worst thing we could do is pretend that it wasn’t our fault. I’ve seen companies sink faster than a ship when they do that. But before we do any of this, we need to get Dexter in, to see if he can figure out what did go wrong.’
I watched her work, impressed. My phone was already in my hand, Dexter’s WhatsApp chat ready and open (the last conversation we’d had was about him stealing my last cereal bar from the staff cupboard. It had been a long day, and I hadn’t been amused). ‘On it.’
Rory had started growing stubble over the last few weeks, and he rubbed his chin now, deep in thought. ‘Do you think this is game over?’
I felt heartbroken on his behalf. I knew how much this meant to him. I reached out and rubbed the skin between his ear and the beginning of his beard. ‘We’ve got this, Ror.’
He relaxed under my touch, making eye contact and leaning his head into my hand. I broke the stare first, unnerved. Why was I feeling this way? This was Rory. And more importantly, there was a Rory and Maeve. I needed a breather. This morning’s stress was clearly getting to me.
Harriet was still scrolling through the thread, narrowing her eyes and jotting things down in the notebook. ‘Penny’s right. This is your first rodeo, so I completely get that it feels like the world is going to end. The memory of the internet is infinite, but the attention span of users is short. I think it will blow over in a few days. With the best will in the world, dating apps still rely on the goodwill of people. There are so many online dates going wrong. As long as we’re doing as much as we can to show that we’re trying to prevent disasters, we should be fine.’
Rory inhaled. ‘If you say so.’
