Page 4 of Never Gonna Happen

The insurance company had paid out £2,000 for everything she’d lost in the fire, but she hadn’t mustered the energy to go shopping beyond pyjamas, underwear, some basic gym gear and a few casual bits to mooch about in at home. Her make-up bag and phone had been in the handbag she was carrying on the evening of the fire, and other than the melted ghd hair straighteners they were the most valuable things she owned. Once she knew where she was working and living next, she’d go on a shopping trip – work clothes, shoes, the lot. Maybe she’d take her mum and buy her something nice too. They drove each other round the bend sometimes, but there wasn’t much spare cash at home for Carol to treat herself.

Emily turned sideways to look at her profile. The suit was a good fit – she’d neither gained nor lost weight in the three weeks since the fire, which was a miracle considering how inedible her dad’s cooking was. Mum cooked lunch for over a thousand secondary school children every day and regularly couldn’t face the kitchen when she got home, so Dad did his best. Emily had offered to cook on a few occasions, but Martin had declared her stuffed courgettes ‘too much pissing about for not nearly enough actual food’, so that was the end of that.

She’d had the suit dry-cleaned and asked her dad to polish the heels she’d rescued from under her desk, just to make him feel useful. Her mum had insisted on giving her some new tights, even though they were a foul gravy-tan shade and made her legs look like hot dogs. Her long brown hair was pulled into a tidy bun, a few strands left loose around her face so it didn’t look too severe. Minimal make-up, pale pink nails, tiny silver hoop earrings. She would have to do.

The alarm on her phone told her it was time to go, so she threw the heels in her bag, put on her coat and trainers, then headed for the tube and her appointment in Mayfair with Mr Charles Hunter.

Emily watched Mr Hunter scan her CV and wondered what he was thinking. Probably disappointed that she went to a bog-standard comprehensive rather than a fancy private school, or maybe pondering why she’d never gone to university with those A-level results. The answer was a simple one, really. She hadn’t fancied being saddled with a hefty debt, even though at the time the fees were nothing compared to what students had to pay now. And she’d wanted to start earning a living and saving to get her own place, since there wasn’t any money at home and she definitely didn’t want to stay there for ever.

She’d worked a summer temp job at her school since she was fifteen, helping out with all the admin for the new September intake. Not only had she enjoyed it, but she’d been really good at it. She looked at ads on online job boards and saw that top executive assistants for law firms and management consultants in London could earn £70k or more, so why not aim for that as a career goal? She’d got an entry-level secretarial job at a building firm in Southampton and started doing evening courses at the local college to gain more qualifications, and by the time she was twenty-one she had enough experience to move to a shared house and a new job in London. Lots of her friends had gone off to uni, but now she was earning more than most of them without the student loan payments. Most of the time she had no regrets.

Charles Hunter was a handsome and powerful-looking man in his late sixties, Emily guessed. Tall, full head of salt-and-pepper hair, well dressed in a shirt and tailored suit but no tie. His handshake was firm and his smile was kind. He looked a bit like Pierce Brosnan and was what her mum would call a ‘silver fox’, a term that was usually followed by ‘get in my box’. Carol could be quite the poet when the mood took her.

They’d already talked about her qualifications and work history, the kind of stuff she’d been doing for Thompson & Delaney. She’d answered all his questions confidently and felt sure that she was more than qualified for this job. So now it all came down to whether she was the right fit.

‘Well,’ said Mr Hunter, putting her CV on his desk. ‘I’m sure you have some questions for me.’

‘I do,’ said Emily with a smile. She’d pre-prepared some simple but smart questions, stuff that was easy to answer but suggested she’d given it some thought. ‘I’ve never worked for a private individual before, so I’m interested to know what kind of work it might be.’ It was hard not to put on a posh accent in a place like this; it felt like the kind of thing you should do to fit in with the fancy furnishings and the huge wooden desk. But she swallowed the mouthful of fake plums and decided he could take her as she was, or not at all.

‘It’s very broad,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘Technically I’m retired, in that I’ve sold my business and I don’t currently run a company. But I still have lots of other commercial interests, and I’m a very busy man. Most of the work will be very familiar to you – travel, correspondence, managing my diary, organising events, getting rid of people I don’t want to talk to. That sort of thing.’

Emily smiled; she was no stranger to getting rid of annoying people. ‘And why do you need someone to live in?’ She glanced around the office, which was part of a large and imposing private house, and wondered why she couldn’t commute. It was only a five-minute walk from Bond Street tube, which was twenty minutes on the Central Line from Stratford.

‘The job isn’t based here,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘It’s at my main property in Norfolk.’ Emily tried to hide her surprise, nodding politely instead. ‘It’s a little remote,’ he continued, ‘which makes it hard to find top-notch staff locally. I spend most of my time there and prefer to work face-to-face. Not very fashionable, I know.’

She paused, wondering if he was whisking her off to some haunted castle, and scrambled for another question. ‘Do you have other live-in staff?’

‘Just my housekeeper and my driver,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘Everyone else is local – gardeners, cleaners, estate workers, that sort of thing. Various members of my family come and go.’

She tried to process this unexpected location, feeling like her train of thought had been derailed. Ooh, here was a good question.

‘Will the job involve much travel?’

‘As much or as little as you would like, really,’ said Mr Hunter. ‘My previous assistant preferred to stay behind and work according to whatever time zone I happened to be in. But if you’re the travelling type, there will be opportunities for you to accompany me. I’ll make sure you have some free time and provide you with a local guide if necessary. I’m a great believer in immersing yourself in interesting places, rather than just passing through.’

Emily nodded appreciatively, like she was the kind of person who had extensive experience of global travel. In reality her only trip out of the country other than the fateful trip to Dubai was a weekend in Amsterdam with a former pothead boyfriend. He’d left her to explore the Rijksmuseum while he baked himself in a coffee shop, then slept the rest of the weekend. Emily’s family had never done foreign holidays when she was a kid – what was the point when the beach was down the road? There’d been loads of day trips to Brighton or London, and once a week on a narrowboat in North Wales, but never abroad.

‘What happened to your previous assistant?’ she asked, then immediately wished she could take it back. It was a question she’d idly asked herself in her head and really hadn’t meant to say out loud.

‘I’m sorry?’ asked Mr Hunter, looking confused.

Emily scrambled for a recovery. ‘You mentioned your previous assistant didn’t like to travel. I just wondered why she isn’t your assistant any more.’ Oh God, it sounds like I think he’s a terrible boss.

‘I killed her with my bare hands and fed her to my dogs,’ said Mr Hunter, his face deadpan. Emily pressed her lips together to stop herself laughing, holding his piercing gaze along with her nerve. I’m not afraid of you.

‘Fine,’ said Mr Hunter, rolling his eyes theatrically. ‘Her name was Andrea and she worked for me for twenty-five years. She and her husband lived in one of my estate cottages, but they recently returned home to Somerset to care for Andrea’s mother, who is rather unwell. We speak regularly; I’ve arranged for her mother to be treated privately. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’

Emily gave her head a tiny shake. Nice work, Wilkinson.

‘Andrea left a couple of months ago, and I thought I’d see how I got on without an assistant for a while. It turns out I get on very badly indeed.’

They were both silent for a moment, sizing each other up. Charles Hunter was hard to read, but he didn’t look bored or uncomfortable. In fact he seemed to be rather enjoying himself.

‘Do you have any other questions?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Emily, rearranging her hands in her lap and deciding it was time to put her cards on the table. ‘The job sounds very interesting, but it’s not an environment I’ve ever worked in before. It’s hard to know if I’m suited to it, if that makes sense.’

‘It makes perfect sense,’ said Mr Hunter, gesturing at the CV. ‘You have the skills I’m looking for, so it all rather comes down to whether we can tolerate each other. What’s your gut instinct on that?’