by Daniel Hurst
It all started when I found out she had stolen from the bank.
In total, she had taken over £20,000 from our employer, a fairly insignificant amount when you consider that we are a multimillion-pound business, but certainly significant when you consider that it wasn’t her money to take.
Of course I confronted her about this as soon as I discovered it, figuring that there must have been a mistake and presuming I might be doing her a favour by going to her first and not our manager. But it turned out that Imogen had known exactly what she was doing, and she didn’t even deny it. Instead, she just begged me not to tell anybody about it.
As her friend, it left me in an awkward spot, but she was persuasive, and I’d always had a soft spot for her anyway. We actually dated for a few months back in our twenties, but she broke it off because she didn’t want a workplace romance, which hurt, but I covered it up because I still wanted us to be friends, and I thought there might be potential for something between us in the future, even after she got married and failed to give me an invite to the big day. That was why I kept her crime quiet when I discovered it, in the short term at least. Imogen assured me she would pay the money back when she had sorted out her father’s financial problems, and we agreed to keep it as our little secret. But then it came time for one of us to be promoted to the position of UK manager. That was when things got a little more complicated.
It was a position that both of us had coveted for years, and even though we knew only one of us could get the job, it hadn’t stopped us being friends as we climbed the ranks in pursuit of it. Imogen was always the favourite for it thanks to her father’s legacy, but I knew that I was just as deserving, if not more so. After all, I had never stolen from my employer.
Imogen assumed she would get the promotion and become my boss, but I had other ideas. I asked her if she had paid back the money yet, and when she lied to me and said she had, I decided I had to start looking out for myself just as much as she was looking out for herself. I asked her to step aside and allow me to become the manager instead of her. But she declined. She told me how important it was to her, as well as her father, and she repeated how she would pay back the money in the end. Call me gullible, but I believed her. She did pay the money back eventually, but still, it was a fairly generous ‘loan’ she had taken for herself. But like I said, I had always had a soft spot for her. That was why I told her that I would step aside and let her take the top job, but there was one condition. I wanted to see her outside of work. Not professionally but personally.
I knew she was married, but I felt like I deserved something in return for all the things that I was doing for her. A date. A good time. One night. Was it really too much to ask considering what I was doing for her? Apparently, it was because Imogen turned me down, and she wasn’t even polite in doing so. It seemed that our relationship only went one way. I did things for her, and she did nothing for me.
That’s when I decided that it was time to put a stop to it.
From then on, with what I knew and what I held over her, Imogen was powerless, and I seized my opportunity to surpass her at the company. I told her to allow me to take the promotion or I would reveal her wrongdoing, and she would lose not only her job but her freedom once the police got involved. It might have seemed harsh, but I was stung by her rejection of me, and I was sick of letting her walk all over me. I’ve always had a twisted streak in me, and I do take a little pleasure in other people’s pain. Hell, I pay good money for that kind of thing in certain clubs on certain nights of the week, so why not indulge in a little of it in the workplace too?
But I’m not all bad. By keeping Imogen’s indiscretion quiet from the rest of the company, I saved her and her father the embarrassment of this story breaking and bringing shame on their name.
The sudden sound of the buzzer at my front door snaps me out of my memories and lets me know that my pizza has arrived, so I exit the secretive files on my screen and turn off my laptop, finished with work for the day and ready to satisfy my hunger for food. But while the pizza will do the job there, there is still one hunger that will never be satisfied. It’s the hunger to punish Imogen. I hated the fact that she thought she could turn me down and move on to bigger things with no regard for the sacrifices I had made for her, and I still hate that fact today. That’s why I am unrelenting in my campaign against her.
Just like the pizza the delivery guy is holding in his arms when I open my front door, Imogen is mine, and that means I am free to do whatever I want to her. She should count herself lucky that I have never tried to make things sexual between us since she rejected me that first time. I do have some limits, at least in the workplace anyway. But I always make sure to keep an eye on how she is feeling because I know there is the potential for me to push her too far one day, and that could be a problem.
After all, I already know she is capable of breaking the law.
So what else could she be capable of?
5
I didn’t get anywhere near enough sleep last night, which is why I’m in such desperate need of this coffee. The problem is that my cup is still empty, and I think that’s because this damn machine has broken down again.
‘Come on!’ I cry as I give the coffee machine a whack, sending a loud crashing sound around this staffroom and probably out into the office too.
I don’t usually express my frustration in such a physical way, but this problem with the machine is just the latest in a long line of problems for me, and they’re all starting to get on top of me now. The delay for my coffee might be a minor thing, but the way Michael is treating me is not, nor is the fact that my ailing father really needs to be moved into a home, and I haven’t had the time to sort it out. Throw on top of that a lack of sleep because I was up late completing reports that were due today for a ridiculous deadline that no human could ever hope to meet, and I’m almost at my wit’s end. I need sleep. I need a break from here. And I need to be with my father during this difficult time. Instead, I’m stuck in this damn kitchen, trying to get this damn coffee machine to work.
‘Morning,’ says the female voice entering the room behind me, and I turn around to see Helen, the finance manager, making her way over to the dishwasher with a dirty cup.
‘I guess you managed to get this thing working, then?’ I say as I watch her pour the dregs of her last drink down the sink before she puts the empty cup in the dishwasher, saving the cleaner a job when they get here later.
‘Yeah, but I had to perform all sorts of spells and magic tricks before that,’ Helen jests, herself all too aware of how temperamental the coffee machine can be.
I laugh before fiddling around with some of the knobs on the machine, determined not to give up because if I do, then there is only water to drink, and that will not suffice. I need caffeine, and I need it now.
‘Here, let me have a go,’ Helen offers, joining me at the kitchen worktop and twisting some of the dials I have already tried myself. But she has the right knack for it and somehow gets the machine to start grinding the beans and spitting out hot water, which is a lot more than I could get it to do.
‘You’re a lifesaver,’ I tell my colleague, relaxing now that my caffeine fix is on the way.
As the machine makes my coffee, I chat to Helen about some of the typically mundane things that crop up in conversation in an office kitchen. What we think about that bitchy email from that bitchy colleague that was sent this morning. What the last good thing we watched on television was when we had the time to sit and relax on our sofas. And of course, what our plans are for the upcoming weekend. But unlike my colleague and good friend Helen, I do not have exciting plans for Saturday and Sunday. While she will be enjoying a trip to Devon with her partner and two kids, I will be scouring the area for a suitable nursing home to move my dear dad into.
A place that he is almost certainly not going to want to go to.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Helen says to me as we take a seat at the table and take a sip of our fresh coffees. ‘You
don’t deserve to be going through this. Nobody does.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, appreciating the sympathy for my plight, or rather, my poor father’s plight. ‘It’s just life, I guess. Our parents look after us, and then we look after them.’
I take a sip of my coffee, which isn’t that nice and was hardly worth the wait, before I decide to change the topic of conversation before I risk depressing my best friend in this office any more.
‘Have you got any days off coming up?’ I ask, moving on to every office worker’s favourite subject, annual leave.
‘I’ve not booked anything yet, but I’ve got loads of days to use. I might have a fortnight off at the end of May, if Michael approves it, of course.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ I reply, and I mean it. Helen’s holidays will get approved because Michael doesn’t hate her. He only hates me and only rejects my holiday applications. The thing that makes that more annoying is that everybody else around here thinks he’s great. I’ve tried to hint to Helen a few times that my relationship with the boss isn’t good, but she can never understand what I’m getting at because with her he is polite and accommodating, as he is with everybody else. So she won’t be able to comprehend how he could be an angel with her while being the devil with me.
It’s unfair, but then again, I have brought much of this on myself, and I remember what I did to get myself into this mess in the first place. It was so stupid of me to steal money from the bank two years ago, even if I had good intentions of bailing my father out of financial trouble, and it’s the evidence of that which has given Michael the leverage to treat me this way ever since. It feels like he is holding a sword over my head that he can bring down at any time by exposing what I did, killing my career and reputation in one fell swoop, as well as potentially drawing the attention of the police whilst also causing my husband and my father a great deal of distress.
If I hadn’t stolen the money, then I would never be in this situation now. I may have progressed to be the boss myself naturally through my honest hard work and endeavour, and if not, I could have just moved onto another bank and taken up a top job there. But I did make that mistake in my impatience to help my father and now I am screwed. I can’t resign and look to move on to a new company because Michael will reveal my secret, and the rest of the industry will believe that was why I left, and they won’t hire me in a million years after that, assuming I could avoid any heavy sanctions and fines from the financial regulators as well as possibly being charged with theft.
I can’t speak to HR or Michael’s boss in the head office in New York about Michael’s treatment of me because, again, he will just expose my secret, and then I will be ruined. And I couldn’t move up to a level above Michael because his job is the only one at that level – the job that should have been mine. I have earned it despite what I did in my past. That was one error of judgement, and I have never broken the rules since. I have played it straight, I have worked diligently, and I have dedicated myself to this bank.
And what do I have to show for it?
I’m an apparently free woman secretly living under harsh rule.
I could consider myself fortunate to still have a job after what I did, but does one mistake deserve a punishment that lasts a lifetime? I don’t know if that is what will happen if my secret is exposed, and that is why Michael is walking around this place with a big grin on his face while I end up taking out my frustrations on the poor coffee machine.
Helen and I have just begun a chat about what we each have planned for lunch when her phone rings, and she tells me that she has to get it because it’s her husband. I smile and watch her scurry out of the room before forcing myself up out of my seat and towards the sink, where I pour away the crappy coffee and decide I’ll just stick to the glass of water that it would have been easier to have in the first place.
As I hear Helen talking to her husband outside the kitchen as she moves away, I think about inviting her and her partner over to my house for a meal one night with Evan. We’ve done it a few times, but it’s been a while, so I might suggest it. I know Helen has two young boys, so she will have to get a babysitter, but I’m sure it can be arranged. It would be good to talk with my friend somewhere other than the office, and I tell myself that I will extend the invitation to her before we finish for the day. I guess Helen proves that my work situation is not all bad. It’s nice to have made a good friend here, and it compensates slightly for the rubbish situation I have with my boss. But that’s enough feeling sorry for myself for one day. Lifting my head up and rolling my shoulders back, I stride out of the staffroom and back out into the open-plan office, where I know Michael will be waiting for me to reappear.
But he can watch me all he wants.
I’m not going to let him get me down anymore today.
6
MICHAEL
It’s been a few hours since I toyed with my favourite plaything, so I pick up my phone and make a call to the desk on the other side of my glass partition. I expect I will have to be patient in waiting for the person at the other end of the line to pick up, and I’m not wrong. It rings three times. Four times. Five.
Until finally, she cannot put it off any longer.
‘What?’
‘That’s no way to answer the phone, Imogen.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘Good. That’s what we’re paying you for.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I would like you to come to my office.’
‘Can it wait?’
‘It could, but I’d rather do it now. Otherwise, I’d be disappointed, and you wouldn’t want to disappoint me, would you?’
I watch Imogen throughout our phone conversation so that I can see every flicker of annoyance and anger on her face. Then I see her put down her phone and reluctantly get up from her desk, making her way towards my office while the employees around her continue to beaver away in their own roles.
‘Take a seat,’ I say as Imogen enters my office.
‘I mean what I said,’ she tells me as she sits. ‘I am really busy, so if you wouldn’t mind making it quick.’
‘Conscientious and dedicated. I like that. But you know you don’t have to impress me.’
I marinate in the heat from Imogen’s glare for a few seconds before continuing.
‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’ve just got off the phone with head office, and they require the report into the Mitchell incident on their desk first thing Monday morning, so I’m going to need you to put that together for me ASAP.’
‘But it’s Friday!’
‘I know. That means you’ll have to work on it over the weekend.’
‘But I can’t. I have things I need to do.’
‘What could possibly be more important than staying on my good side so that I don’t have to expose your secret to the world?’
‘I mean it. I really can’t do it this weekend.’
‘And why not?’
Imogen hesitates before she answers me, and I’m not sure what it is that she could be so reluctant to say.
‘Can’t somebody else do it? Just this once? What about Samantha?’
‘I’m not asking Samantha. I’m asking you because it’s your job.’
‘Yes, it is, but I can’t be expected to always work to these ridiculous deadlines.’
I detect the strain in Imogen’s voice, and from that, I gather that I’m either pushing her too far or that William’s condition must be deteriorating since the last time I looked into it. Perhaps that is why Imogen is so against having to work this weekend. I wonder how much time poor William has got left.
‘How is your father doing these days?’ I ask as I recline in my seat, the same seat that William himself used to sit in when he presided over the events in this office.
But Imogen doesn’t give me an answer, and I wasn’t expecting one because she never talks about her dad with me, or at least not since she screwed up and made me her enemy. She doesn
’t believe that I am worthy of occupying the throne that her father once sat on, and I know that because she has told me plenty of times in the past when I have been pushing her buttons to get a reaction out of her. I’ll admit I might not command as much respect as William once did around these parts, but I have my own management style, and it’s working just fine. At least it is for everybody else here, though understandably it’s not quite working for Imogen.
‘Never mind. Give my best to William next time you see him. But have that report on my desk first thing Monday morning. That will be all.’
I swivel around in my chair so that I am no longer facing Imogen, making it clear that the meeting is over as I pick up my pen and start putting my signature on a couple of documents that require it. But I can sense that Imogen doesn’t move, and when I look back over at the sofa, I see her still sitting there.
‘Do you have something to say?’ I ask her, intrigued as to what she might be thinking now.
‘Yes, I do, actually.’
‘And what might that be?’
Imogen slowly gets up from the sofa and makes her way over to my desk, her eyes burning into me as she reaches the barrier between us and leans over it, her hands on top of the papers that I was just in the middle of signing.
‘One day, you’re going to push me over the edge,’ she warns me without a hint of a lie in her voice.
But if her plan is to intimidate me or make me ease off on her, then she is in for a disappointment.
‘That’s the plan,’ I say with a smirk on my face, a smirk that I doubt very few people in the world could resist punching if they were ever to be submitted to it like Imogen is now.
There is a fairly tense moment where the two of us say nothing but maintain eye contact across the desk before Imogen finally backs down and heads for the door, her little performance over now and on her way back to do what I have just told her to do like she always does.