“Please sit down,” he said.
“You’re serious?” I asked, looking down at the photo again. The arrogant grin struck me. Would it be so bad to wipe that grin off that face? What did I care who ran one corporation or other?
“Deadly serious,” Mr Mitchell said, digging a file out of his drawer and passing it over to me. “That’s everything we have on him though it’s not much. He’s one hell of a private son of a bitch. Take it with you and go through it tonight. You start work tomorrow morning at nine sharp. The board vote next Wednesday on whether or not to accept my offer. You’ve got until then to find me something I can use. After that it’ll be too late. If I don’t get this done, the shareholders will put me out to pasture. I promised them I’d get this sorted and if it wasn’t for Mason fucking Radcliffe, it would be. I know he’s hiding something, Miss Brook. Find it.”
THREE
Mason
I wouldn’t say that me and Natalie got off to the best of starts. It was a Monday morning when we first met. Or, more accurately, when she poured hot coffee all over me.
I’d woken up that morning with a deadline looming over my head, a deadline that descended to weigh heavily on me as I dressed. A week and a half until the board decided whether to listen to me or the sultry tones of Damien Mitchell. I was the only thing standing between us and takeover. If Williams and Mitchell got their grubby hands on this place, we’d lose at least a thousand staff just in the first week, guaranteed. Not that the board seemed to care. All they saw was the amount they could make and to hell with the little guy.
My father wouldn’t have cared. He’d have sold out long before now. But he was dead and I was in charge. The decision was all on me. And I would see hell freeze over before Mitchell got his hands on the place. After all he’d done to my family, he could rot before I voted him in. If I was less bothered about staying out of prison, I’d have thrown him out of his office window long ago. That would have been a fitting way to end things.
I arrived at work a little after eight. I tended to get there early, there wasn’t much keeping me at home apart from a spider in the corner of my living room that had been there longer than I had. The office was just starting to come to life when I arrived, the last of the cleaners winding up vacuum cleaner cables as I passed. “Good morning Doris,” I said as I passed.
“Morning, Mr Radcliffe,” she replied. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said as I stepped into the lift and made my way up. I was already settled in my private office and buried in mountains of financial statements when nine o’clock came round and the working day began
Susie, my number two, knocked on my door just as my will to live began to ebb away. “Good morning, Mr Radcliffe,” she said, dumping another file on my desk whilst mouthing an apology. “How are you this morning?”
“Fine, thank you, Susie. How did Jimmy’s game go?”
“How on earth did you know about that?”
“Got my spies everywhere, no one’s safe, not even you.”
“I’m sure my husband would have something to say about that.”
“Well?”
“They won, two nil in the end.”
“Good to know. Pass on my congratulations.”
“I will, thank you.” She pointed down at the desk. “Are those ones done with?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take them down myself,” I stood up, scooping up the two files nearest me. They were full of projections. Projections that might be irrelevant if the board voted yes to the takeover bid, yet still I had to keep going with them, ticking here, crossing out there. The work was a good distraction.
I’m sure there are some bosses whose entire working day consists of golf and ogling receptionists but that’s never been my style. How can you take charge of all those people if you don’t know what’s going on around you? And the best way to find out what’s going on is to take a walk through the building from time to time, listen to the conversations, watch the mood, just observe. I know that some of them find it intimidating when I pass by but that’s not such a bad thing, keeps them on their toes as social media pages and solitaire games vanish from screens the instant I appear.
I was walking between the cubicles when she appeared from round the corner, moving far too fast to stop. I barely had time to realise she was there before she slammed into me, the two coffees in her hands crushed between our bodies. Hot fluid soaked into my shirt, burning my skin as she stumbled backwards, mumbling an apology.