by Heleen Kist
There’s an enormous joint intake of breath. The room buzzes and voices mutter when the CEO bounds onto the stage with an enthusiastic double-armed cheer. The Chair shakes his hand and leaves.
Various people turn to Laura in admiration. A frantic press scuttles into even better position.
Suki is chewing her lips.
‘Thank you very much. Hello Edinburgh,’ the CEO starts. ‘I’m super excited to be here. I have only ever been to this country once before, and that was to visit the Isle of Skye, where my grandmother was born. It gives me tremendous pleasure to experience Bonnie Scotland again.’
Suki rolls her eyes.
‘You may be wondering why I’m here.’ The audience laughs. He smiles. ‘Okay, I know you’re wondering why I’m here. As a surprise, like this. Well, we thought it would be fun to reward those people who are closest to Empisoft — you — by letting you witness the signing of a historic agreement. Shh... Quiet down. It gets better.’ He flashes a wide row of California-white teeth. ‘My friends, right at this moment, an announcement is making its way to the Nasdaq stock exchange. But you are officially the first to hear that we will pay one hundred and three million dollars for the privilege of bringing Empisoft into the PeopleForce family.’
The room erupts in a cacophony of shock.
The CEO moves his hands up and down to calm them. ‘Yes, I would have preferred a round one hundred million, too. But what can I say? They drive a hard bargain.’ He smiles and the audience laughs. ‘And here he is, the man of the hour, Justin Travers.’
Justin joins him in a single, show-off, leap. He brings the papers. Both men hold their pens up high before placing their signatures on the two sets of documents. They hold hands and raise them up, giving the photographers their money shot.
Justin adjusts the microphone. ‘Hello,’ he says to cheers and shouts from those assembled. ‘I’ll keep this brief. I’m sure you have many questions and they will be answered in due course. For now, I just wanted to say how thrilled I am that PeopleForce have recognised the tremendous efforts by our staff here in Edinburgh in creating something spectacular. You know me as a bullish entrepreneur, but today exceeds even my aspirations from when I started the company all those years ago with Laura Flett.’ He looks out over the audience. ‘Laura, where are you?’
I wish the floor would swallow me whole. Suki turns to me clapping, joining all the others. Those hundreds of faces smiling at me, waiting for a reaction. I pull the corners of my lips up meekly and wave, turning three hundred sixty degrees for everybody to get an excruciating good look.
My knees wobble as I see a woman with long blonde hair turn around, almost in slow-motion. Emily? Reality hits and I bring my hand back. If only she could be here now.
Justin says a few more things that get drowned out by lingering applause. PeopleForce’s CEO steps to his side again and takes hold of the mike. The room falls silent. I feel sick.
‘As a founder myself,’ he says, ‘who sold his start-up to PeopleForce over six years ago, I can completely relate to what Justin is going through right now. It’s an amazing feeling.’ The two men nod at each other in mutual recognition. ‘And I have to admit, that I am quite jealous of Justin today. Because, unlike me, he has decided to step away from the business, take time off and pursue his personal passions.’
Justin’s eyes grow wide and his jaw falls. His head darts between the man who has unexpectedly just fired him, publicly, and the nearly thousand eyes cast upon him.
I squeeze Suki’s hand. We both press our lips firmly shut to prevent an unacceptable reaction. Under the table, we stomp our feet to let the pent-up energy out somewhere.
A brouhaha of admiration and incredulity fills the void left by Justin’s shock. The CEO extends his left arm to invite Justin to leave the stage. He doesn’t move.
I see Claire, in the wing, waving him over, looking picnicked. Eventually, she succeeds and he follows her like a zombie through the green curtain.
‘Thank you, Justin,’ Dr Steele says, clapping. He puts on an exaggerated frown. ‘Lucky bastard.’ He takes a deep breath, looks over his shoulder, and continues. ‘Now I can imagine that some of you may be concerned about the impact of the acquisition on this wondrous city. And I can reassure you that we at PeopleForce consider this a first step in a strong alliance with Scotland, which has grown to be a terrific hub of talent and enterprise.’
I think that, under any other circumstances, the audience would suffer from applause fatigue by now, but they’re still going.
Claire skips over to us, a full glass in hand.
‘How’s Justin?’ Suki asks.
‘I think he’s literally in shock.’ Before I can ask more details, Claire turns to look at the stage and says, ‘He’s almost done.’
The CEO wraps up. ‘PeopleForce have committed to maintain the R&D centre for Empisoft here, and we’re projecting to increase head count as we expand our product range further in close collaboration with colleagues in California. But I’m delighted to say that PeopleForce’s commitment to Edinburgh is not restricted to product development. It extends to embracing you into our corporate social responsibility activities, to the benefit of all your residents. I’d like to invite Diane Campbell of Madainn Finance to join me for another exciting announcement.’
The cameras shuffle around to change angles. The reporters are by now sitting down scribbling in notebooks that are no doubt filling up more pages than they could have expected.
Suki holds her breath. We know what’s coming: our last nail.
Dr Steele and Diane stand side by side, a row of smiles. He speaks, ‘They often say it takes a village to raise a child. I can assure you, it also takes a village to make an acquisition go through. It has been my personal pleasure to get to know Diane over the last few weeks. She’s Empisoft’s corporate finance adviser. A formidable woman.’
I whisper to Suki, ‘They’ve met?’
Suki shakes her head. ‘No. He’s just saying that. Look at her smile. It’s fake as hell.’ She chuckles.
‘And Diane and I share a passion,’ Steele continues. ‘To celebrate confident women in the workplace. To make sure that any employee, anywhere, regardless of their gender, their sexual orientation or their religion, can flourish at work.’ He clears his throat and looks down at the press. ‘Now you are well aware that we, ourselves, have recently failed in this. It is therefore all the more important that we step up and lead by example. PeopleForce launched the Upright Fund across three cities in the US two months ago. For those who do not know, this is a ten-million-dollar not-for-profit initiative that will give free legal advice to people in work who believe that they have suffered discrimination or harassment in the workplace.’ He breathes in. ‘Today we announce the Edinburgh chapter of Upright, and we are honoured that Diane has agreed to be its Chairperson. And not only that... Diane?’ He makes space for her.
She leans in; her thick, gold chain rattles against the microphone. A professional-looking smile precedes the announcement we’ve been waiting for. ‘I’m extremely grateful to Dr Steele for asking me to lead this fantastic initiative. And in recognition of Madainn’s commitment to uphold these same values, my partner Angus McLeod and I are donating the bonuses we’ve earned from the Empisoft and PeopleForce transaction to further fund Upright’s work here in Edinburgh.’
The whoops and hollers are higher pitched than before: women celebrating this act of sisterhood.
Claire shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Two million dollars, was it, Suki? Oh, that must hurt.’
‘One point eight million to be precise — I wasn’t about to forego my share,’ Suki says, grinning widely.
It seems reasonable to me. After all, she made it happen.
Dr Steele gets the last word in before the press invades the stage. ‘Thank you very much. Stick around and celebrate with us.’
As if on cue, a waiter passes by our table. I grab three glasses and divvy them around. This is it. Mission completed.
/>
‘Here’s to the Avengers,’ Claire toasts. We clink glasses together.
A male voice says, ‘Hold it right there.’ Craig rotates the lens while we maintain our glasses up and our teeth out. ‘That’s great, thank you.’ Craig drops the camera, for it to hang around his neck again. He looks around. People near us are dispersing. The VIPs are being ushered offstage.
My heartbeat quickens as he walks towards me. I give him a warning look. Will he understand? I haven’t told the others yet.
‘Are you ready to go?’ he asks.
I wince. My head darts between Suki and Claire’s surprised looks. I feel the blood rush to my face. I give my friends an apologetic — but excited — look and step towards him.
‘Yes, I’m ready.’
59
I, SUKI
Claire and I watch Laura run off with her sneaky new beau.
‘I’ll be damned,’ I say.
Turning to face me, Claire blinks a few times. ‘Well, I didn’t see that coming. Did you?’
‘Nope.’
Claire takes another sip of champagne. ‘I wonder when that happened.’
‘Beats me. She’s a dark horse, our Laura,’ I say, taking a sip of my own.
I nudge Claire. She nearly drops her glass. ‘Is that Andrew Bevan from the Scotsman over there?’ I nod at a chap in red corduroy trousers.
‘Yes. Man, he was hard to convince to come. Too senior,’ she says, in a mocking tone. ‘I couldn’t tell him about the acquisition yet, but I promised I’d make it worth his while. He can’t complain now! Why do you ask?’
I slip my hand into the small side pocket of my jacket and pull out a USB device. A mischievous grin spreads across my face. ‘I am going to give him just enough information for him to work out Justin’s double life on Twitter. As commander of Incel scum that attack innocent women like Emily.’
Claire’s hand shoots to her mouth. ‘You can’t. Oh my God. Can you imagine the damage?’ Her eyes widen. ‘Bloody hell, Suki. It would spread everywhere.’ She drops her hand. ‘Wait. Didn’t Laura say you shouldn’t ages ago? Justin would be branded for life.’ She shakes her head. ‘No, Laura said no.’
I twirl the USB stick between my fingers in front of her nose. ‘Come on. We can’t let this whole thing end Laura’s way. She’s much too nice — particularly when it comes to Justin. I mean, yes, he might have lost his dream job in a very public and embarrassing stunt, but boo-hoo. He’s still walking away with millions.’
Claire checks who’s around and leans in. ‘Are you truly going to do this?’ she whispers. ‘It’ll be carnage. The Incel trolls will eat him alive.’
I turn my eyes upward, searching my conscience. I come up empty, and wink. ‘I don’t care.’
She struggles to suppress a smile, a cheeky glint in her eye. ‘You’re wicked.’
I shrug. ‘He started it.’
Time’s up
Acknowledgments
I can be a stubborn old cow.
My first novel, ‘In Servitude’, didn’t fit neatly into a genre and even though everything I read about the publishing industry said you must conform to genre to be successful, I chose once again not to listen: I had a story to tell.
I’m immensely grateful to the team at Red Dog Press for taking the risk of adopting my genre-fluid baby and introducing it to the world; celebrating the beauty of all its facets; joining me in defiantly declaring it crime fiction in recognition of the insidious harm of everyday sexism.
If you think I’m stubborn, though, you should meet my editor Sara Cox. She never let up. Never let me get away with ‘good enough’. In your hands is the product of an incredible investment of time and emotion from her, for which I cannot give enough thanks.
I am indebted to my author friends for being willing to read, share tips, laughter and commiseration any time day or night: Jonathan Whitelaw, CS Duffy, Alison Belsham, Rob Parker, SE Smart.
This book has benefited from the enormous support of blogger and reader friends, who enthused about the story and provided suggestions from the very first draft. Thank you to Donna, Jessica, Jo, Laura, Martijn, Naomi, Rachel, Sarah, Sascha, Shalini.
A stickler for accuracy, I’m grateful for friends who sanity-checked the plot with specialist knowledge: Sandy McKinnon for IP; Linda Woods for data science; Cat McLean for partnerships.
Many characters were named with you in mind – though never the baddies!
Thank you to my mother Lyda and the many valiant others battling for equality and freedom from sexual harassment so that my Delphie, and all our daughters, can shine unencumbered. I’m blessed with three generations of good men who lead by example: my father Floor, husband Grant and son Marcus.
Lastly, thank you in advance to male allies for paying attention and calling out behaviour that is not okay, as we jointly make meaningful change — soon.
About the Author
Heleen Kist has been fondled, patronised and ordered to smile by random men. So she wrote ‘Stay Mad, Sweetheart’, a feminist tale of revenge.
Whilst her professional knowledge of technology start-ups fed the novel’s setting, its theme of harassment and workplace discrimination required no research: it is familiar to all women.
Heleen was chosen as an up and coming new author at Bloody Scotland 2018. Her first novel, ‘In Servitude’ won the silver medal for Best European Fiction at the Independent Publishers Book Awards in the USA and was shortlisted for The Selfies awarded at London Book Fair.
A Dutch strategy consultant living in Glasgow and married to a Scotsman, she’s raising their son to be a good man and their daughter to kick ass.
You can follow Heleen Kist on Twitter @hkist, or sign up to her newsletter at heleenkist.com to keep up to date with her news.
Also By Heleen Kist
IN SERVITUDE
When Grace's beloved sister Glory dies in a car crash, her life spirals out of control. She discovers Glory was indebted to a local crime lord and laundering money through her cafe. What's worse, Grace is now forced to take over.
Defying her anxiety, Grace will stop at nothing to save herself and those Glory left behind from the clutches of Glasgow's underworld. But her plans unravel when more family secrets emerge and Grace is driven to question everything she believed about her sister – even her death.
IN SERVITUDE is a gripping roller coaster of family, crime and betrayal. Perfect for lovers of page-turning suspense.
QUESTIONS FOR BOOK CLUBS
The three central women in the story wanted those who’d done wrong to pay a price. But did the punishments fit the crimes?
What is your view on how the friendship dynamics change between Laura, Claire and Suki as the story progresses?
In your opinion, who is most to blame for Emily’s decision to end her life?
What instances of ‘getting carried away’ did you encounter in the book? Why does this happen?
There were multiple examples of sexism throughout the book. Which ones would you shrug off?
What responsibility do victims of harassment or discrimination bear in reporting it?
Did you feel this was a ‘women versus men’ story? Why or why not?