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“Twenty grand and I go away quietly.”
She pretends she hasn’t heard me, picking her nails. Mumbling something I can’t hear, she then cackles like the true nonsensical bitch she really is.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she brags, “I’m the boss, not you.”
“You took a young man and moulded him to your own specifications. For twelve bloody years. I don’t think that’s boss-like behaviour, do you? More like abusive behaviour if you ask me.”
“Pfft,” she spouts, shaking her head.
Those feet are back on her desk and her chair is once more reclined, but she’s nowhere near as cocky as she was before, her air of bravado usurped by fear as her actions start to catch up to her.
“You have nothing concrete,” she says, the corners of her mouth twitching with the beginnings of a hopeful smile.
“As you may recall, we had a conversation yesterday during which you gave me props for having worked for Sharon in the past, since I clearly had to deal with some difficult, often, crooked people in that line of work.”
“I—yes.” She sits up again and scowls at me. “Tell me now before I throttle you.”
“One of the things I quite often had to do was employ a private detective to find out things on people who were threatening Albie or other members of the band.”
She starts shaking at my mention of using a private detective.
“What did you do, you little bitch?” she demands, her true evil peering out from beneath those dark eyes, like the softly spoken, easy going PR guru is the front—and this is the real person.
“I haven’t done anything yet. But let me tell you something. Growing up on my own I had to learn to take care of myself, and I learnt that very quick, and I suppose it’s why I fared so well working for Sharon. I did whatever I had to do, but I did it with a smile and I did it quietly and professionally. And the resoundingly positive responses you’ve had from clients I’ve dealt with recently are not new. I know how to treat people well. I know that, because if I hadn’t treated people properly over the course of my sorry little life, I wouldn’t be standing before you now. So you see…” She nearly has steam coming out of her ears and I can’t help but smile. “I can pretty much call up any private detective who knows me well and get them to plant whatever I ask, or have them find out whatever I want, and they’ll do it. Because people know me and my character, but they also know yours. Don’t they?” I give her an extra-long look down my nose. “So, what’ll it be? Money, or me coming for you until you lose everything? Because you will lose everything once I’m done with you. Once every little secret is out there for all to see.”
Her face takes on a grotesque expression as she shakes her head at me. She’s defeated and she knows it. Angrily, she flicks her mouse until her iMac comes back to life. Then she’s bashing her keyboard typing something and consults her phone, grimacing as she chucks a pen towards me.
Once a piece of paper has flown out of her printer, she tosses that to me too.
It’s a contract stating that she’s paying me £20,000 severance and that I’m to promise to not have contact with her clients, or staff, and to never speak of her or her business to anyone else who might be a mutual acquaintance, blah, blah, blah, ever again.
I sign it and she checks over my signature. Then she growls, “Money’s sent.”
“Let me check.”
I open my banking app and sure enough, there it is. The easiest money I ever earnt. Not that it means anything to her, though. It’s not as though I just took candy from a baby. I’m getting what I deserve. I’ve singlehandedly rebalanced the order of this place and it needed doing.
One day, she might realise PR really isn’t her thing and she’ll do something worthwhile instead, like become a librarian or cake baker. You know? Something for the community.
If not that, the very least she could do is stop spoiling Manolo’s with her skanky, overly veined feet.
I stand up and smile down at her. She looks braced to leap from her chair and tear my hair out. Something nearly has her out of her chair, but in a split second, she makes the decision to sit her skinny arse back down. Nearly spitting, she says, “Well, aren’t you going? GET OUT!”
“I’d be careful of how you treat people who know what you’re really like. The contract says I can’t speak to your clients and colleagues, but I can go right up to your front door and speak to your husband, can’t I?”
She snarls and clucks her tongue. “You’re done. I’ll make sure nobody ever employsyou!”
“Try your best, Chrissy. Do your worst. But you know what? Karma’s a special thing. It makes sure people like you always get what’s coming to them.”
I leave the room to the sound of the woman screaming, “Lila, get my lawyer on the fucking phone!”
When I come downstairs, more people have left and there’s a decidedly frigid atmosphere. As I’m packing up my desk, Daisie asks, “Was this all you?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It was just a long time coming.”
I am but the extra factor in the equation that loaded the odds against Chrissy.
Daisie walks over and hands me a five-pound note. “Go and grab a nice coffee somewhere before you go home. Take a breath, you look like you need it. And don’t worry, this is London. Jobs are ten a penny. When she implodes, finally… none of us will be left, I reckon.” She hugs me and I nearly burst into tears. It’s all a bit too much.
