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Over and over again.
“You did well at lunch today,” Em said, keeping her eyes on Tom’s face.
“Always knew I liked you.” Once Tom had tried to hide his flirtations, but the more power he’d accumulated as the head of products and markets, the less he bothered. It bothered Jacinta greatly. She was fond of Tom, but she had no influence over him and nothing she’d done to persuade him not be such a letch had ever stuck. He was one sexual harassment suit off ruining his marriage. But as of the weekend, who was she to criticise him.
“No, you were good.”
Tom did a top to toe sweep of Em. “I was born good.”
No, Tom was born a playboy. Bryan had been born good. And yet it was Tom who was the corporate prince and Bryan, who’d wanted to be a good husband and a great father, had been ousted. None of that history, irony, reality had been part of her thoughts Friday when she’d hit on Mace.
Jacinta gestured for Em to take a seat opposite her. “Tom, we need to get on with this.”
“I’m not finished with you. There’s something going on.”
“Out.”
He held up his hands, backing out, his eyes on Em’s crossed legs while he pantomimed call me.
Em sighed and said in a quiet voice. “I know he’s your brother, but I still want to strangle him.”
“You know he’d run for the hills if anyone took him up.” Though of course she didn’t know that at all and Tom being a Wentworth had natural impunity, an impunity she knew extended to her, which made what she did to Mace all the more odious. She felt slightly sick to realise it.
“I’ll have HR talk to him again.”
“That just makes him worse. He gets all woe is me, nobody understands me.”
“You’re right.” She considered her media chief. This interview she was about to do should be given by Malcolm, but after the tongue lashing she’d received Jacinta knew Em would be reluctant to approach him and hell, even journalists preferred not to talk to him.
“Next family function I’ll knee Tom in the balls for you. That might slow him up.” That was both lame and inappropriate, but it was all she had. The problem of Tom wasn’t a crisis for today. Just like the problem of Mace had no business being in her thoughts.
Em shook her head. “Your family. When I took this job they said working for a listed family company would be a nightmare.”
Jacinta laughed. “Do we pay you enough to say that?”
An hour later, interview complete, the next day’s media and public events schedule massaged, Em said goodnight and Jacinta was able to start her day from the top. She cleared phone messages and sent out follow up instructions, she read pending reports and finalised a regulatory presentation. At 9pm she started on her email inbox. Mel had helped to keep it clear, but it was still a mountain of content to digest, do or dump.
At 10pm she made coffee and scarfed a stale sandwich. At 10.30pm she had one last obscure report from the investor relations group to review, something about related company dealings. Her brain was fried and this would no doubt be a torturous read. She could easily leave it till tomorrow. She had a hankering to go home and soak in the bath. But she had back-to-back meetings for the next two days. She opened the report. It was midnight before she closed it, heartsick but resolved.
Investor relations had found a way to link Wentworth and the marathon bomber, Roger Kincaid. It was tangled but it was there. She left her desk to walk around her office, then down the deserted corridor of the executive floor. It was the equivalent to think music and she needed to think—desperately hard.
It was a miracle the media hadn’t gotten on to this. When the major newspapers employed senior rounds journalists this would have been uncovered by now. This was both a lucky break and a curse. The report on her desktop hadn’t been copied to Em or anyone other than herself and Angelo Bardetta, the head of investor relations. Angelo was in the hospital having his gall bladder removed. She doubted he’d read it.
She went back to her desk. She printed the report and read it again, hoping the conclusion would be different. Hoping she’d missed a qualifying fact, some mitigating circumstance that didn’t lay moral blame at Wentworth’s feet, which meant at hers, at Malcolm’s and the board’s.
But there it was. Roger Kincaid, the marathon bomber, lost his job when Wentworth’s industrial finance division denied continued lending to his employer, forcing it to send manufacturing offshore and retrench hundreds of people. He became bankrupt because he couldn’t pay off his Wentworth car loan or his two maxed out Wentworth credit cards. Then he lost his house, because a finance company Wentworth was major shareholder of foreclosed on him because Wentworth issued an instruction to tighten lending practices.
The rest was public. Kincaid was unable to get another job. His wife left him, taking their two sons. He got depressed. He got angry. He was hospitalised, treated and released, and at some point in the last week, he snapped and decided to take his revenge by bombing the marathon, whose largest sponsor was Wentworth Finance.
13: Crack
Dillon cracked him over the back of the head and Mace knew he deserved it. He wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy watching the foyer area around Tower A where Jacinta worked. He didn’t expect to see her, but still he looked, hoping he might catch a glimpse of her wearing her corporate armour.
He squinted at Dillon. “Sorry. I’m listening.” Since Dillon had made the trek, the least he could do was focus. His office was five blocks away, but as he was a senior director it was easier for him to nick out without being called on it than it was for Mace, so they always met outside Wentworth Towers.
Dillon sipped a takeaway coffee. “He gave us hard deadlines. And when I say hard, I mean killer. We won’t be able to do this in a couple of nights.”
Mace studied the notes Dillon had handed him. The was a fuck-load of work to do to meet Jay’s requirements, and Dillon was right, between work and Buster there wasn’t enough time.
