Crunch! With no little sense of disquiet, Yancie saw she had lost the tenuous hold she had on her job, as it suddenly went shooting from her grasp. And, because of it, her brain, usually lively and active, seemed to seize up. She should have been ready for this; but wasn't.
'I-er-I-er-paid for the petrol I used myself,' she heard herself say idiotically. `I have authority to book petrol and oil to the company, but wh-when I stopped at that service station I paid…' Her voice trailed off at the realisation that-oh, you fool-she had just, by her statement, confirmed that she hadn't been on that stretch of the road on the firm's business.
Thomson Wakefield looked over to her, but if he was waiting to hear more he wasn't getting it. Her tongue, like her brain, had gone into reverse.
'That was very fair of you, Miss Dawkins to pay for the petrol,' he commented silkily but she suspected that sort of tone. And a second later knew she was right to suspect it when he continued, `And the milometer? How did you square that?'
Like she was going to tell him! Like she was going to tell him any of the `wrinkles' that went on down in the transport section! How, when Wilf Fisher had asked her to make that fifty-mile round trip on unofficial business, he'd said to give the correct mileage but, if asked why the extra mileage covered, to state that her passenger had asked her to do an errand. Either that, or the said passenger had asked her to take him to see a friend or family member. Since their passengers were almost exclusively board members or someone very high up in the executive tree, nobody, according to Wilf, would dream of questioning why the top brass had needed to do the extra mileage. Certainly, no one in the transport section.
'I'm waiting!'
Oh, crumbs! Dumbly Yancie stared at him. If he'd only smile-he had rather an attractive mouth. She blinked. For goodness' sake pull yourself together-had this man totally scrambled her brain?
'I-er-can't tell you,' she managed falteringly.
'What-the mileage scam or what you were doing being where you shouldn't have been?'
Neither, actually. `There's no great scam,' she replied-well, you could hardly call fifty oddly miles a scam.
'So, what business did you have-other than the company's business?'
Oh, honestly! Why didn't he back off? Because he was it, that was why. He was the numero uno, the big cheese, and, having her on the end of his pin, he was enjoying making her squirm-and she didn't like it. Had her errand been for herself, then, she conceded, she might very well have told him what she was about. But there wasn't only herself to think about here-there was Wilf. Wilf had a wife and four young children. And, while Yancie was having to face that there was a very real danger here that she might be looking for alternative employment at any moment now, she just couldn't wish the same fate on Wilf. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if, through her, Wilf too was dismissed.
'You're not going to say?"
'I- No,' she mumbled.
Thomson Wakefield didn't seem to have expected any other answer, but leaned back in his chair and, looking sternly at her, he questioned, `Just how badly do you want to keep your job?'.
Yancie felt sick in the pit of her stomach. She was about to be dismissed, she knew it. `Very badly,' she answered. `I really, really need it,' she emphasised, in a last-ditch hope.
Thomson Wakefield's look sharpened. `You have a family to keep-a child?'
" 1'm not married.'
He leaned back in his chair again, his look speculative. `You are acquainted with the facts of life?' he queried.
Sarcastic pig; she didn't need him to tell her that you could have a child without necessarily being married. `I know the theory,' she replied, putting in more effort to stay calm. Though, at another of his long, steady stares, she felt herself go a bit pink-and saw him take in her blush, too. Well, it wasn't every day, or ever for that matter, that she told a complete stranger that she was a virgin.
However, if her blush just now confirmed her statement for him, her ultimate employer did not comment on it either, but, with a quick glance to his watch, as if believing he had wasted more than enough of his precious time on her, Thomson Wakefield got to his feet. Yancie, too, was on her feet when at last he gave her the benefit of his deliberations.
'You may keep your job, Miss Dawkins,' he told her coldly.
'Oh, thank-'
'But…'
She might have known there'd be a `But'. `But?' she stayed to enquire.
'But you're suspended-without pay-until you give me an answer to my question of what you were doing on that part of the motorway.'
Thanks for nothing! Yancie came close then and there to telling him what he could do with his job. Why she didn't she couldn't have said. Her glance, however, was as cold as his when, just before she walked to the door, she told him coolly, `I'll see myself out.'
It was Saturday morning before she had got herself of sufficient mind to begin thinking of something other than that cold and unfeeling brute Thomson Wakefield. Suspended! He might just as well have sacked her. No way could she bring Wilf into this. No point in both of them looking for a new job.
And that, she knew, had to be her first priority. She was still adamant that she wasn't going to touch a penny of the allowance which her stepfather paid into her bank account. But she had to face the fact that, even with Astra refusing to allow her to pay rent, having been absolutely astounded at Yancie's suggestion that she should, just day-to-day living was costly.
By Monday Yancie had double-read every likely job in the situations vacant columns there were not, she had to face, very many for women without experience in the workplace.
Though she knew in her heart of hearts that although, as Thomson Wakefield had pointed out, she had been in the job only a short while-and freedom aside-she felt she really didn't want to work anywhere else but at the Addison Kirk Group.
She supposed it must have something to do with the people she worked with. Oh, not Thomson Wakefield; she didn't care for him one tiny bit. If he was not exactly the grumpy old devil she had told him he was, then it couldn't be said either that he was full of the joys of spring.
But the other people she worked with other drivers, Wilf, the executives she chauffeured around-to a man they were all unfailingly pleasant. She thought of Thomson Wakefield-she did quite often. And why shouldn't she? She wouldn't have said he'd been unfailingly pleasant when he'd had the nerve to suspend her. She had never driven him-the possibility that she one day might didn't enter any equation. She'd better carry on looking for another job.
It had been embarrassing returning to the transport section after that loathsome interview with him. Had she not left her shoulder bag in her locker Yancie felt she might have made a hasty exit without anyone being any the wiser.
Though, on reflection, she'd owed Kevin Veasey the courtesy of telling him he was going to be a driver short, if he didn't already know. Fortunately it had been after five when she'd made it back down to the transport section and most of the staff had left for the weekend.
'All right?' Kevin smiled as she approached, and Yancie knew then, from his manner, that apart from being extremely curious that she had been called to the top floor he had no earthly idea of why.
'Not exactly,' she replied, and, a little shamefaced, was obliged to admit, `I've been suspended.'
'You've been…' Kevin stared at her in total surprise. `Suspended!' he exclaimed. `What for?"
'You don't know?' Clearly he didn't Thomas Wakefield had not reported her to her department head, it seemed. But then, he didn't have to; he was handling it himself in his own beastly authoritarian way.