The Warning by Sophie Hannah Page B

said was powerful. Memorable. Yet now you can’t seem to say anything at all. Why is that?”
    “Someone please tell me what going on, before I go crazy,” I blurt out. “What’s Speros? Who are Jackson and Decker? Are those other companies Tom worked for? Did they get rid of him?”
    Simon turns to face me. “Why do you ask that? Is it because I told you Tom had been fired?”
    “Yes. And now you’re mentioning company-sounding names I’ve never heard of.”
    “You’re wrong, Chloe. You’re too suggestible. If you think back over what I said at the market stall, you’ll realize I never said that Tom had been fired from anywhere. He hasn’t. He’s never been anything but an exemplary employee.”
    “What? But you said—”
    “I asked you if he’d said anything to you about being fired. I asked if he’d mentioned the circumstances in which he left either Sagentia or Intel.”
    “Yes, and you said Lorna’s question was the right one, when she asked if he’d been sacked.”
    “It was the right one. I wanted to get you all thinking along those lines: people being fired.”
    “You also said sociopaths tend not to be able to hold down jobs for very long, and have to fake references to get new jobs.”
    “Yeah, I did. But I never said any of that applied to Tom Rigbey, did I?”
    “I don’t remember. I don’t memorize every word you utter, I’m sorry.”
    “Take it from me,” says Simon. “I didn’t. Because Tom Rigbey has never been forcibly ejected from any company he’s worked for. Tom Rigbey is not a sociopath. Yes, sociopaths often get fired. Who do you know that’s been fired recently, Chloe? Anyone spring to mind?”
    What could he mean?
    Only one thing.
    Having stopped for a second, the world starts to turn again, in a different direction.
    “You,” I breathe, staring at Nadine.
    “At last.” Simon sounds relieved. “Chloe Daniels, meet Nadine Caspian the sociopath.”

 
    Chapter 16
    “I’ M NOT ANY label that applies to a group of people,” says Nadine. If she’s shocked or hurt to be described as a sociopath, she doesn’t show it. “I’m me—an individual.”
    “One who’s been fired three times now,” says Simon. “And for the same thing in all three cases. It’s an unusual form of transgression, I’ll grant you that. As you say: individual. At Speros Engineering, you picked on one Martin Kennett—like Tom Rigbey, Kennett was a man way above you in the office hierarchy. You were friendly and helpful to him to his face, but every so often you’d take someone aside—someone you thought might be about to get close to him, someone who seemed to think well of him—and you’d warn them about him. ‘Keep away from Martin Kennett—he’s bad news, seriously bad.’ You probably put it more poetically, I’d imagine, since you described Tom Rigbey as a plague. You don’t want to deny any of this?”
    “No.” Nadine smiles. “I warned people about Martin, yes. I think it’s important to warn people, even if it’s not what they want to hear. It’s for their own good.”
    “You were fired from Speros because, although your hints gained some traction initially and some people did keep their distance from Kennett, you shared your poisonous warnings with one person too many. Eventually, someone with more-than-average confidence in their own opinion refused to be swayed, and instead thought, ‘Hang on a minute. There’s no way Martin Kennett’s evil or dangerous, and no one should be trying to blacken another person’s name at work without hard facts to back up her story.’ I don’t know who that person was, Nadine. The bloke I spoke to at Speros wouldn’t tell me her name. Maybe you know it? Anyway, whatever her name was, she went to her boss and made a fuss. Martin Kennett versus Nadine Caspian became official and guess what? You had nothing to back up your claims and hints, did you? You were revealed for what you were. Are, I should say: a spiteful