I gave her the same spiel. “What I need is a few minutes of your time so you can run through your shelf-allocation principles,” I finished.
She nodded. “No problem. Come through to my office, I’ll take you through it.”
I fell into step beside her. “I really appreciate this,” I said. “I know how busy you must be.”
“You’re not kidding,” she said. “But this business needs more women who can give the boys a run for their money. When I was doing my business-studies degree at the Poly, it was almost impossible to get any of them to spare any of their precious time,” she added grimly. Thank God for the sisterhood.
She ushered me into an office that was marginally bigger than the room off my office that doubles as a darkroom and the ladies’ loo. Most of the floor space was take up by a desk dominated by a PC. The desk surface and the floor around it was stacked with files and papers. Sandra Bates picked her way through the piles and sat in her chair. “Give me a second,” she said, staring at the monitor.
I used the time to give her the once-over. She looked in her late twenties, about my height, her jaw-length light brown hair expertly highlighted with blond streaks. She was attractive in a china doll sort of way, pink-and-white complexion, unexceptional blue eyes and a slightly uptilted nose. Her determined mouth was the only contrasting feature, indicating an inner strength that might just give the boys a run for their money in the promotion stakes.
“Right,” she said, looking up and grinning at me. “What do you want to know?”
“How you decide what goes where on the shelves,” I said. I don’t know why I wanted to know that, but it seemed a good place to start if I wanted to get round to KerrSter.
“The general order of the products in the aisles is ordained from above, based on market research and psychological analysis, would you believe,” she said. “It’s the same way that supermarkets decide you get the fruit and veg first and the booze last. I mean, those of us who actually do the shopping know that your grapes get crushed by the six-packs of lager, but I suppose they work on the principle that by the time you’ve cruised the aisles, you feel like you need a drink.”
My turn to grin. “So what decisions do you actually make on the shop floor?”
“What we decide is what goes where within each section. The received wisdom is that items placed at eye level sell better than those you have to reach up for or bend down to. Now, all the checkouts are computerized, and I can access all the product figures from this terminal here. That way, I can see what stock is moving fast, and make sure we reorder at the right time so that we neither run out nor end up with huge stockpiles. When a particular line starts to outstrip rival products, it automatically goes into the best shelf position so that those sales are maintained or increased. With me so far?“
I nodded. It was all terribly logical. “Are there any exceptions?”
Sandra nodded approvingly. “Oh yes. Lots. For example, when a company brings out a new product, they will often arrange to pay us a premium in turn for our displaying it in the most advantageous shelf position. Or if a company’s product has been ousted from its top-selling position by a rival, they’ll offer us a loss-leader price on the product for a limited period in exchange for them getting their old shelf site back so they can try to reestablish their old supremacy.”
“Is that what Kerrchem have done with KerrSter?” I asked.
Sandra blinked. “I’m sorry?” she asked, sounding startled.
“I was having a browse round before I asked to see you, and I couldn’t help noticing how prominent the KerrSter was. And with that guy dying after he opened it, I’d have thought sales would have gone through the floor,” I said innocently.
“Yes, well, it’s always been a popular seller, KerrSter,” Sandra gabbled. “I suppose our customers haven’t seen the stories.”
“I’d have thought Kerrchem would have recalled it,” I went on. For some reason, talk of KerrSter was making Sandra Bates twitchy. Rule number one of interrogation: When you’ve got them on the run, keep chasing.
“They recalled one batch,” she said, regaining her composure.
“Still, I wouldn’t buy it,” I said. “I’m surprised one of their competitors hasn’t tried to exploit the situation. In fact, I’m surprised a small company like them outsells the opposition so comprehensively.”
“Yes, well, there’s no accounting for customer preferences.
Now, if there’s nothing more you’d like to know about the shelf stacking, I have got a lot on my plate,“ Sandra said, getting to her feet and waving vaguely at the paperwork on her desk.
I was back on the street inside a minute. Being hustled twice in one morning was bad for the ego. Olive Abercrombie I could understand. But the mere mention of KerrSter had shifted Sandra Bates from cooperative sisterhood to the verge of hostility. Something was going on that I didn’t understand. And if there’s one thing I hate, it’s things I don’t understand.
13
I’M NO CYBERPUNK, BUT I KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT HACKING TO know that I couldn’t get into Filbert Brown’s computer network on my own. I knew they had to have a central computer that dealt with all their individual branches. Via that it should be possible to crawl back inside Sandra Bates’s data. Way back in the mists of time-say, around 1991-I could probably have reached first base. Bill has a program that dials consecutive phone numbers till his modem connects with another computer. I could have set that to run through all the numbers on the same exchange as Filbert Brown’s head office. It would probably have taken all night to run, but it would have got me there in the end.
However, the powers that be have decided that darkside hackers like us need to be cracked down on, so now they’ve got their own sophisticated equipment that picks up on sequential dialing like that and traces it. Then the dibble comes and knocks on your door in a very user-unfriendly way. Besides, getting the computer’s number was only the start. I’d need a login to get through the front door, and a password to get any further. Ideally, I needed the password of the sysman-the system manager. Most people who are authorized users of a network system have logins which allow them only limited access to the part of the system they need to work with. The sys-man is what computerspeak calls a superuser, which means he or she can wander unimpeded throughout the system, checking out each and every little nook and cranny. With Bill’s help, I might just have managed it to achieve sysman status on the Filbert Brown network. But Bill was on the other side of the world.
That only left Gizmo. I tried his number, and got lucky. “Wozzat,” a voice grunted.
“Gizmo?”
“Yeah?”
“Kate. Did I wake you?”
He cleared his throat noisily. “Yeah. Been up all night. What d’you want?”
I told him. He whistled. “Can’t do that one for the usual,” he said.
“But can you do it?”
“Sure, I can do it,” he said confidently. “Getting in shouldn’t be a problem. But if you want sysman status, that’ll cost you.”
“How much? ”I sighed.
“One and a half.”
Trevor Kerr could stand another hundred and fifty quid, I decided. “Done deal,” I told Gizmo. “How soon?”
He sniffed. Probably on account of the whizz he’d have snorted to keep him awake all night. “Few hours,” he said.
“Sooner the better.”
Back in the office, routine awaited. A stack of background information had arrived in the post that morning. I’d been waiting for it so that I could complete a report for a client on the three candidates they’d short-listed for the head of their international marketing division. One of them looked like he’d have a promising career writing fiction. The candidate’s degree from Oxford turned out to have been a two-year vocational course at the former Poly. His credit rating was worse than the average Third World country’s. And one of his previous employers seemed to think that his financial skills were focused more in the direction of his bank account than theirs. All of which would make the selection panel’s job a bit easier.