by Penny Avis
Rachel watched as the plethora of runners and dog walkers wound their various routes around the park. Just watching them made her feel tired. Where did they get their energy from? Rachel wasn’t sure she could run upstairs at the moment, let alone run round the park.
As she contemplated the day ahead, Rachel knew she had to see Carl to let him know about Audrey’s threat to tell all. But rather than being worried about it, she felt numb. Whatever happens, happens, she told herself. It didn’t seem so important any more. Maybe she’d been taking work too seriously.
She also knew that her chances of promotion to director were probably fading fast. She’d nearly missed a major fraud and her presentation to Equinox had been a bit of a fuck up. Then on top of that, just as she was trying to turn around her reputation as an unreliable party girl, her university past might come back to haunt her. Being disciplined for climbing historic buildings while being drunk and disorderly was hardly something that she’d put on her CV when she had applied to Payne Stanley. They probably wouldn’t have hired her if they’d known.
An elderly lady walking a particularly ugly pug dog smiled at Rachel as she walked past. ‘Lovely morning,’ she said. ‘Makes you feel happy to be alive, don’t you think?’ Her bright eyes shone out from a wrinkled face that looked remarkably like her dog’s, and she seemed full of energy in spite of her curved back and walking stick.
Rachel looked around. It really was a lovely morning. The sun was glinting gently through the trees, dappling the grass with green and yellow stripes. The park’s flowerbeds were bursting with colour and for once the sound of birds chirping and children shouting was louder than the traffic noise.
‘Yes, it is a lovely morning actually,’ said Rachel, smiling.
The pug dog growled at her and then farted loudly, somewhat spoiling the moment. Rachel tried hard not to giggle.
‘Cornelius, stop that!’ said the lady, tapping the dog on the head with the end of the lead. She grinned cheekily at Rachel and then shuffled away, dragging a reluctant Cornelius behind her.
Rachel watched her walk away and then stood up, feeling slightly ashamed. She was young, fit and healthy, on a good day really pretty attractive and not exactly stupid. She had a great job, her own flat and no farting pets. In fact, when she thought about it, she had plenty to be happy about. She just needed to get a grip and deal with what was in front of her, one step at a time.
‘Come on, snap out of it. Let’s get this show on the road,’ she said out loud.
She went back to her flat and made herself two rounds of cheese on toast, which she ate in front of the TV with a large glass of orange juice. She then had a long shower, rubbing herself all over with an exfoliating shower cream until her skin was glowing and pink. She washed and straightened her hair, applied a little more make-up than she normally would for work and dressed in a navy skirt suit with canary yellow shirt underneath.
When she arrived at Beau Street she stopped to have her customary chat with Fred.
‘You look nice today, Ms Altman, very sunny,’ said Fred, his eyes twinkling at her.
‘Thanks, Fred. To be honest, I was in need of a bit of sun today. Been working a bit too hard. You know how it is,’ said Rachel.
Fred nodded knowingly at her. ‘I do, I do. This job is long hours too, you know. I was here before seven this morning. Still, it means I got to see the sun come up this morning. You can’t beat a good sunrise, you know. You can tell a lot about the weather from different colours of the sunrise.’
‘Really? What’s the weather forecast today?’ Rachel asked generously.
‘Mainly sunny with some light cloud cover this afternoon,’ said Fred.
Rachel smiled. She was going to miss Fred.
‘We’re probably finishing today or tomorrow, you know, Fred. We’re pretty much done here,’ she said.
‘What a shame! Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ms Altman. Do pop in and say hello every now and again, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I will, and good luck with the alternative career plans,’ said Rachel, nodding knowingly at Fred.
‘Ah well, I have some news there actually,’ said Fred.
‘Really?’ Rachel was amazed. He hadn’t actually got a new job, had he?
‘My sister-in-law has asked me to help out with newspapers for the blind. She’s a volunteer reader for them and they need some more help. And guess what? I’m going to be reading the weather! It’s only a few hours a week, mind, but I’m really excited about it.’ Fred looked over the moon.
‘That’s fantastic, Fred! I’m delighted for you, and what a good cause too. Well done,’ said Rachel, squeezing his arm.
‘Oh, I doubt anything much will come of it,’ said Fred. ‘I’ll probably still be here in ten years’ time.’
Rachel was touched by Fred’s confidence that he’d still be working ten years from now.
‘And if you are, they’d be lucky to have you,’ said Rachel.
Fred beamed at her. ‘Well, yes, maybe they would,’ he said.
AJ was sitting eating a sandwich when Rachel got to the project room.
‘How are you feeling?’ AJ asked.
‘Not bad, thanks. Better for the slow start,’ said Rachel.
‘He’s a bloody idiot if you ask me,’ said AJ, and then looked a bit concerned that he’d said the wrong thing again.
Rachel grinned at him. ‘Thanks. I think I’m just working that out.’
‘What’s the plan for today?’ AJ asked.
‘I’m going to go and see Tom shortly, see how the deal is progressing with Equinox, and then I need to pop back to the office and see Carl, talk to him about what we do about Audrey,’ said Rachel.
‘Can I come?’ AJ asked hopefully.
‘No, sorry, I think it will be better if I see him on my own,’ said Rachel.
‘You get all the good jobs,’ said AJ.
‘Awkward jobs more like. Anyway, if you and Rosa can try to clear all the square brackets we have in the report and then start handing all the files back.’ She looked around at the piles of paper and coffee cups scattered around their project room. ‘We also need to clear this room out before we go. I’ve never seen so many coffee cups.’
‘Ooh, did someone say coffee? White with one sugar, please,’ said AJ.
Rachel smiled. ‘Alright, I’ll get coffee. You start sorting out those files.’
She walked down to the coffee machine and as she got there she saw Clive Steele kneeling down, fiddling with the cup dispenser.
‘Problems?’ Rachel asked.
Clive looked up at her. ‘Hello, Rachel, how nice to see you. Yes, can’t seem to get a cup to come out.’
‘You need to flick the little arm across,’ said Rachel. ‘It gets stuck sometimes.’
‘Where?’ Clive asked.
‘Just inside the cup dispenser on the left,’ said Rachel.
‘Can you show me?’ Clive asked, peering into the hole.
Rachel knelt down beside him, reached in and flicked the small arm inside the cup dispenser, making a cup drop down into the dispenser. ‘There,’ she said, standing up.
Clive stayed on his knees to survey her legs.
‘Very nice. And I bet they look even nicer higher up,’ said Clive, tilting his head so he could look up her skirt.
Rachel stepped away from him in horror. ‘I beg your pardon!’
Clive stood up and laughed. ‘Just a bit of banter, you know. I’m sure a fun girl like you likes a bit of flattery every now and again.’ He leant over and patted Rachel gently on the bottom. ‘And now that we’re going to be working together, I’m sure we can be very good friends,’ said Clive.
‘Would you kindly keep your hands to yourself!’ said Rachel, pushing his arm away.
‘Oh don’t be like that. Otherwise I might have to tell a few people about your little clock climbing escapade. Tom would love to hear about it, I’m sure. He loves a good story.’
Rachel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What a disgusting little man!
‘Don’t you dare threaten me,’ said Rachel. ‘And besides, I know all about you and Audrey Fox, so you’d better be careful.’
‘What about me and Audrey Fox? I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Clive.
Rachel wasn’t sure she knew the full story but decided to gamble. ‘I know that you were sleeping with her, that she gave you the inside track to make sure you won this project and that in return you gave her money.’
Rachel held her breath. That was quite an accusation.
Clive stared at her. ‘What a load of crap,’ he said.
Rachel steeled herself. ‘Did you bid five grand less than the other companies to win this job by any chance? I’ve seen Audrey’s notes on the pitch documents. I could always check with Tom if you like?’
Clive went a bit pale and rubbed his forehead. Rachel could tell she was on the right track.
‘Er, no need to do that. I’m just being friendly as we do need to work together, after all. Tom has made that quite clear,’ said Clive.
‘Well, I’ll make sure that you have all the information you need. One of my team will do that. But just to be clear, I won’t be working with you at all, friends or no friends,’ said Rachel.
‘Well, you’d better hope your reputation stays intact in the meantime,’ said Clive.
‘So had you,’ said Rachel, trying to look braver than she felt.
‘What happened to the coffee?’ AJ asked when Rachel came back into the room empty-handed.
‘It looked even more disgusting than usual. I’ll go out to the Italian on the corner instead. Look, I bumped into one of the guys from the PR company just now. They still need a few bits of information from us. Would you mind dealing with it from now on? I’ve got quite a lot to do already,’ said Rachel.
‘Sure, no problem,’ said AJ.
She wrote Tim Archer’s contact details down for AJ and sent Tim an email explaining that AJ would be his point of contact from now on.
Rachel stood in the queue at the coffee shop still feeling a bit shaken by her encounter with Clive. Would it really matter if he said anything? It was so long ago. Rachel wasn’t so bothered about her reputation, which if she was honest probably wasn’t that great anyway. She was more concerned that she hadn’t told Payne Stanley when she had applied to them, even though she wasn’t sure whether she was required to or not. Somehow she just didn’t feel it would be helpful to her promotion prospects if it came out now. But Rachel felt tired of worrying. She probably wasn’t getting promoted this time round anyway, so she might as well go ahead and tell Carl before someone else did. That would take the wind out of Clive’s sails.
AJ rang to say that Rosa had arrived just in time for Rachel to add a third coffee to the order.
‘Plus three of those round chocolate pastry things,’ she said to the amply proportioned lady serving behind the counter.
‘Good choice, they’re quite delicious,’ she said. ‘We bake ’em fresh every day. Anything else?’
‘No, that’s it, thanks,’ said Rachel. She could have bought the whole shop, it all looked so good.
AJ, Rosa and Rachel sat in the project room happily sipping coffee and scoffing their chocolate pastries.
‘Very good call,’ said Rosa. ‘These are yummy.’
‘Have I got it round my mouth?’ Rachel asked. ‘I’m seeing Tom in a minute.’
‘No, you’re fine,’ said Rosa.
Rachel knocked on the door of Tom Duffy’s office.
‘Hi, Tom. How are you? I thought we should probably have a quick catch up as we’re nearly done here. Did you get any feedback from Equinox on our presentation?’ Rachel wasn’t sure she wanted to hear, but she knew Carl would ask.
‘Ah, Rachel, yes, we did. Good timing actually. They have a couple of follow up questions and I was about to ring Ryan Miller. Could you stay and we can do it together?’
Rachel hadn’t been expecting another grilling. ‘Can I just pop and get my files?’
‘Sure,’ said Tom.
She dashed back to the project room.
‘Shit, Tom wants me to do a call with Equinox,’ she said to AJ and Rosa as she rushed into the room and started madly grabbing bits of paper.
‘What about?’ Rosa asked.
‘No bloody idea, just some “follow up questions”. That’s all Tom said. God, I hope I can answer them.’
‘Here, take my pack,’ said Rosa. ‘It’s all labelled and in order, so you should be able to find anything you need.’
Rachel flicked through Rosa’s immaculately organised file.
‘Thank you, life saver. Again,’ said Rachel, smiling at Rosa gratefully and rushed back to Tom’s office.
Tom had already called Ryan when she got back to his office.
‘Ryan, Rachel is just joining us now,’ said Tom.
‘Hey there, Rachel, thanks for joining us,’ said Ryan. ‘We found your presentation very useful by the way. You guys had certainly been thorough, which is very comforting.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rachel, inwardly cringing at the prospect of what might have happened had she kept quiet and Equinox had found out about Lloyd after they’d bought the business. Thorough would not have been the word they’d have used then!
‘Look, we’re wondering what data you have on the performance of other doctors? Before we move forward, we need to be sure this wasn’t a one-man show and that the business can survive without Cassidy.’
‘Yes, we have plenty of data on that, Ryan. We looked at it when we stripped Lloyd Cassidy’s sales out of the numbers we showed you.’ Rachel turned to the relevant pages in Rosa’s pack and moved slightly so Tom could see them too. ‘There are several other doctors with sales levels very similar to Dr Cassidy’s and plenty of others with very positive growth rates. Take Stella Webb, for example,’ said Rachel, running her finger across the table of figures. ‘Her client base has grown by more than fifteen per cent over the last two years. I can send you the information we have, if it’s okay with Tom?’
‘Yes, please do, this looks very helpful,’ said Tom, nodding at Rosa’s carefully presented analysis. ‘And don’t forget, Ryan, we’re also working on those new income streams we talked about to replace Lloyd.’
‘Yeah, I know, but if you could email that data it’d be real useful too,’ said Ryan.
‘Of course,’ said Rachel. She didn’t know what new income streams they were talking about, but decided it probably wasn’t anything to do with her. That was for Tom and Ryan to sort out.
Ryan ran through a few more questions, all of which Rachel found she could answer easily. Maybe she did know what she was talking about after all.
‘Thank you, that was great, very helpful,’ said Tom when the call had ended. ‘I think we’re finally getting there. Equinox were naturally quite concerned about the whole Lloyd Cassidy débâcle at the outset, but when you showed them what the business looked like without him, they were much more relaxed. They were very happy with your full report too, very detailed,’ said Tom.
‘Oh that’s good,’ said Rachel, pleasantly surprised.
‘And they commented on the efforts you’ve all been to. Brenda Martinez in particular said she could tell how well prepared you were.’
Rachel went red with embarrassment. ‘Oh right, that’s good. Have they firmed up on their offer?’ she asked, quickly changing the subject.
‘At the moment they want to reduce their original offer to take account of our lower sales figures without Lloyd. But we’re trying to find some alternatives to plug the gap, and luckily Charles has managed to do a deal with Lloyd. We won’t involve the police provided he agrees to leave with immediate effect and doesn’t take any money from the sale of the business. So with a bit of luck, we might end up with an offer that doesn’t change that much,’ said Tom.
‘That’s really good new
s. I’m surprised Charles and Lloyd are even speaking, though,’ said Rachel.
‘I don’t think it was a very pleasant conversation, but in the end it made sense for both of them. We’re pretty sure that the money he’s giving up from his share of the sale is much more than he could have skimmed off over the years.’
‘I’m not sure you’ll ever know unless you find some more records. I didn’t find any when I looked. Are you close to agreeing a deal with Equinox then, do you think?’ Rachel asked.
‘Yes, quite close,’ said Tom. ‘Equinox have still got their legal investigations to finish, which aren’t proving exactly straightforward, and everything has to be approved by the board, so there’s still a way to go before it’s a done deal. Plus, we’ve got to work out how the businesses would operate together − who’ll do what jobs, all that sort of thing. That’s Stella’s job. But at least we’ve got the main valuation points agreed.’
‘I’m seeing Carl in a bit so I’ll tell him. I’m sure he’ll want to ring you himself. The team are just finishing up now. I think we’ll probably be done today or tomorrow, so we’ll be back at our own offices after that,’ said Rachel. ‘Once we’ve finished off a few square brackets in the report, we’ll send it round as final.’
‘Thank you for all your hard work,’ said Tom, smiling. ‘I know it hasn’t exactly been straightforward.’
No, it certainly hasn’t, thought Rachel.
In the taxi on the way to the office, Rachel reflected on the fact that Lloyd had done a deal with Charles. What would happen if they told them Audrey was involved too? Presumably they’d just quietly get rid of her too. But Rachel wasn’t sure whether they’d be telling Tom and Charles about Audrey or not. That would have to be Carl’s call, and it wasn’t going to be an easy one.
Carl was on the phone when Rachel arrived at his office. He waved her into the room and gestured that she should sit down. It sounded like he was talking to someone about a new project.