‘Pleased with yourself, Dudley?’
‘Yes, I am rather.’
Charlie Bell heard the penthouse lift descending and smiled to himself. Dudley had been up there for over an hour, there must have been something other than early delivery of mail to discuss; but that was their business. Charlie was discretion itself which was why Miss Lovebrace looked after him so well. Dudley emerged from the lift looking rather pleased.
‘Are we to get earlier deliveries then, Dudley?’
‘You certainly are, Charlie.’
Charlie strolled to his desk, took the van keys from a hook and handed them over. ‘That’s good news. Your van’s in the delivery parking bay at the back.’
Dudley took the keys. ‘Miss Lovebrace has asked me to take some special photographs for one of her companies; she’s a great admirer of my wildlife photography.’
‘Good for you,’ said Charlie, relieved to think it was a business transaction which had occupied their time and she was not lowering her standards.
An elderly couple with several bags of shopping, hastily moved to one side as Dudley, preoccupied with his own success and growing importance, strode out of through the entrance.
‘Post late again Charlie?’ enquired the man.
‘Ah, I’ve just persuaded him to change his round and deliver to us early, Major.’
Major Dodd looked delighted. He stopped and lowered the shopping bags to the floor. ‘Jolly well done Charlie.’ Taking a five pound note from his wallet he palmed it surreptitiously to their much valued concierge. Charlie touched his cap. 'Can I help you with your bags Major?’
CHAPTER EIGHT.
Samantha Derby was having another bad morning but it was difficult to understand why. She was a telesales ace and would back her ability to sell anything to anyone. The challenge of a low basic salary and monthly commission, worked very well for her, but this month it looked as if she would be taking home little more than her basic.
She took her first telesales job after some success in door to door sales for an energy company, at the start of her gap year. Subsequent selling over the phone for a rival company proved extremely lucrative and by the time she was halfway through her gap year, she was earning double what she could expect to earn with a decent degree after university. She decided to put university on hold for another year and logged her details with an employment agency specialising in telesales placements. Travel Plan was starting a new division called Travel Plan Dynamic. The idea was to persuade high earners, who were in the habit of building their own trips from a number of suppliers, to leave all the work to them. It was exactly the challenge Samantha was looking for. There were ten telesales operators working in Travel Plan Dynamic and she was by far and away the top earner. After only twelve months trading, Dynamic accounted for twenty eight percent of Travel Plan’s profit and she was earning more than Barrie Billingsgate, the Sales Director. She liked Barrie, he was not the least bit phased by her earning more than him. They had regular lunch meetings to discuss ways of increasing sales which sometimes led to a bonk back at her place but that’s all it was, just a bonk. Her boyfriend was at university and Barrie was married, they both thought of a bonk as no more than having a cigarette, although it was a more enjoyable habit.
She terminated a call to a regular Dynamic customer who had made holiday arrangements through another company offering the same service. When questioned, they all provided a similar answer which amounted to not wishing to name the other company. She was building a picture and it was becoming obvious that a competitor had acquired their holiday history and preferences and offered the same service as Dynamic for twenty percent less. Every case was similar. There was something very odd going on. She switched to ‘internal’ and keyed in Barrie Billingsgate’s extension.
The telephone made Natasha jump. How should she answer? Would he say Barrie or Billingsgate? It had to be Billingsgate.
‘Billingsgate.’
A friendly female voice came on the line. ‘Hi Barrie, it’s Sam, any chance of popping down for a couple of minutes, we seem to have a problem.’
Sam? It was the trollop from Dynamic who was shagging her husband. She made Barrie’s voice sound brusque and dismissive.
‘I’m busy right now. There’s a board meeting in fifteen minutes. Can’t it wait? ’ She had tried calling Barrie to get some information on Dynamic for the meeting, but his mobile was switched off. She had gleaned what she could from last month’s sales figures, which were slightly down on the previous month. What stood out though was Samantha Derby performance, she converted more calls to sales than anyone else in Dynamic and her turnover was more than treble that of the second person in the table. Perhaps she ought to talk to her after all.
‘Sam? Look, I’m sorry if I sounded abrupt. I can spare a couple of minutes. Where shall we meet?
‘Sure,’ said Sam, who had been taken aback by Barrie’s initial reaction. ‘I’ll see you at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll go there right away.’
Natasha breathed a sigh of relief as she put the phone down. She had no idea what Samantha Derby looked like. She didn’t even know where the Dynamic area was on the fourteenth floor.
The temptation was to run, but Barrie would hardly run around the office, so she propelled his body in purposeful strides past the lifts and the toilets to the emergency stairway. Halfway down the first flight she heard the door to the fourteenth floor open and as she turned on the half landing she saw a young blonde girl watching her descend. When Natasha stepped off the bottom step and looked down at Samantha Derby from Barrie’s six feet two, she estimated that she was about five-five, the same height as herself. She was smartly dressed in a knee length navy blue skirt and a crisp white cotton blouse; the top two buttons of the blouse were undone, but it was not enough to suggest that this woman saw herself as a sex kitten. In fact she looked the image of an efficient office worker. She spoke first.
‘Thanks for coming down Barrie. I know you’re busy, but it will probably be quicker if I show you the problem on my computer.’
‘Okay, Sam.’ Natasha tried to sound friendly. ‘Sorry if I sounded a bit off on the phone, but I’ve been up against it this morning.’
She flashed him a devastating smile. ‘I won’t ask you what you’ve been up against, but it’s good to see it’s not a clipboard day. She laughed and Natasha laughed with her. What did she mean – clipboard day?
Sam touched Barrie’s elbow, a familiar, friendly gesture. ‘Come on, I can show you the problem in less than three minutes.’ Natasha followed her through the doorway and past a double row of telesales operatives. So this was the Dynamic section. She nodded to a couple of operatives who looked up as she walked by. Barrie would undoubtedly have addressed them by name. They had name tags, but she was too far away to read them.
Samantha Derby sat down in front of her computer screen and skilfully used the mouse to bring up a new picture. She half turned to Natasha. ‘You will have to stand close behind; I’m going to bring up a spreadsheet of all the customers I’ve called since the beginning of the month. I keep a record for my own benefit.’
Natasha stepped closer and stood behind her chair, relieved that the back was solid and higher than Barrie’s waistline; at least there was no potential for embarrassment should Barrie’s thing start misbehaving itself. Then what Samantha meant by ‘clipboard day’ dawned on her and she wondered if those days coincided with mornings when she was too tired to contemplate sex. She discounted that thought when his penis began to stir. She was looking down at the keyboard as Sam keyed in some instructions which made her breasts jiggle. Natasha forced Barrie’s eyes to look at the screen. Would she become a lesbian if she took Barrie’s thoughts back with her, if and when they changed back to their own bodies?