Knowing Me Knowing You (14 page)

‘
God, what did I do? Don’t tell me, we got the IHT refund on the
Whitchurch
case,
’
Kate said, putting her jacket on the back of her chair and admiring the decorations.

‘
Nothing to do with work, as you well
know
. I’ve been telling everyone who wasn’t at the
Peterson Finance
dinner
,
about your amazing performance on Friday night in
Knowing Me Knowing You
,
’
Miranda spoke, coming out of her office and standing with the group, toying with the ends of her hair.

‘
Oh, that, hmm,
’
Kate replied not really liking all the attention.

‘
She was marvellous, and so was her partner, the lovely Joel. I have to say I’m an
incy
bit jealous of you Kate, having bagged a gorgeous hunk like that. Honestly girls, you will not see a more honed pi
n-up, not even on the cover of
Men’s Health
and he was such a gentleman too,
’
Miranda explained.

‘
He snores and he leaves the lid off the toothpaste,
’
Kate said hurriedly, smiling at her workmates.

‘
Anyway, we just wanted to say well done Kate for your success and for getting into the next round. If there’s enough interest we will arrange transport to the next show in
Bournemouth
and we just know you’re going to do equally well there,
’
Miranda spoke in her well practised
h
ead of
d
epartment tones.

Everyone clapped, much to Kate’s embarrassment.

‘
Right, perfect, back to work everyone.
And Kate, when you’ve got a minute could you come through,
’
Miranda asked in a serious tone.

‘
Yes, of course, I’ll just clear some balloons,
’
Kate said, pulling out her chair and making confetti fall on the floor.

Miranda saying ‘when you’ve got a minute could you come through’ always filled everyone with dread. She didn’t tell you what it was about, and because she didn’t tell you it made you think of all the awful things it could be, like getting your P45, having her point out a mistake you had made on something that was too late to rectify etc. And she knew this, which was why she didn’t elaborate; it was all about power and control. Miranda loved nothing more than control.

Kate knocked on Miranda’s office door and waited to be summonsed.

‘
Come in,
’
she called, like a
h
igh
c
ourt
j
udge directing barristers to enter Chambers.

Kate opened the door and offered her boss one of her ‘yes I’m absolutely fine thanks for asking’ smiles.

‘
Would you like to sit?
’
Miranda offered, saying it like an order rather than a request.

Kate sat down and her eyes were immediately drawn to the file on Miranda’s desk which had red pen scrawled all over a set of accounts.

‘
I was just looking at the
Prestwick
file,
’
Miranda said and she ran her manicured fingers over the spreadsheet on top of the file.

‘
Oh yes,
’
Kate replied, racking her brain and trying to remember the details of the case.

‘
I have to say Kate, the accounts you supposedly finalised for me are very shoddy,
’
Miranda stated.

Kate didn’t know how to respond. The words hung in the air. She was sure she had checked the
Prestwick
accounts thoroughly, even for space between columns, full stops in the right places, underlining. All of
which were usually more important to Miranda than the numerical accuracy.

‘
They don’t even balance,
’
Miranda added.

‘
They do,
’
Kate snapped back immediately and slightly unexpectedly.

If there was one thing she knew it was that they would balance. She sweated blood over every set of accounts until they were right to the last penny. She’d never presented an unbalanced set to Miranda in her life.

‘
I’m afraid they don’t, see for yourself,
’
Miranda spoke and she passed Kate the file for her to look at.

Kate could feel Miranda’s eyes boring into her as she checked her figure work. Miranda was right, the accounts didn’t balance. She couldn’t understand it. She had spent hours on them, everything had been perfect. She was certain they had been absolutely faultless the last time she looked at them. But maybe she was wrong. She had been distracted lately, not on top of her game, maybe she had missed something.

‘
Now I know things haven’t been easy for you lately and I can’t begin to imagine how hard it is to bring up
Bethan
without a father there
,
but you really have to start paying more attention to your work. Perhaps, now your personal life is on the up we can expect a little more dedication?
’
Miranda said mockingly.

Bitch.

‘
Miranda, I don’t know how these accounts got like this
.
T
hey were finalised, they balanced, I did the memo and put them in your tray,
’
Kate tried to explain, feeling desperately inadequate.

‘
Yes, I have the memo; it was attached, to these haphazard unbalanced accounts,
’
Miranda replied.

‘
Well, I just don’t know what to say.
’

‘
There’s no need to apologise, I’ve called the
client and explained the delay.
P
erhaps you could prioritise them for today, together with the
Lawrence
papers, I need those by lunch time,
’
Miranda said with a smile that could advertise Max Factor.

Kate looked at her boss, not knowing how to respond. And then Miranda tossed her hair backwards and for a brief second all Kate could think of was whether or not the blonde mass of hair really was a wig. She knew she was staring but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t know whether it was her turn to talk, she was too focused on the follicles.

‘
I’ll leave it with you then,
’
Miranda said, making it clear their conversation was over.

‘
Yes, OK, fine,
’
Kate replied, getting to her feet and turning to the door.

‘
Perfect,
’
Miranda ended, turning her back on Kate.

Kate stepped back into the main room and let out a deep breath as she hugged the
Prestwick
file to her chest. She wasn’t relishing looking at the accounts again, they had taken her long enough to sort through in the first place. Plus she hadn’t started on the
Lawrence
papers yet. Since when had they become urgent?

‘
Everything OK?
’
Lynn Charles asked, stopping opposite Kate as she took another deep breath hoping to force in oxygen and force out the realisation she was going to be looking at figures for the rest of the day.

Lynn
was Kate’s secretary. She was a young, slight blonde who was extremely efficient in everything she did. It was
Lynn
’s organisational skills that had got Kate through the trying time when Matthew first left. She had screened all Kate’s phone calls, arranged only the most urgent appointments and taken on anything else she could to help. Despite being an excellent secretary and a reliable friend
Lynn
did tend to talk the back limb off a mule usually around the water cooler where the whole world could hear. Discretion was an unknown entity to her.

‘
Yes fine
-
well actually no,
’
Kate admitted turning to head back to her desk.

‘
What’s the Lady Dragon said now?
’
Lynn
questioned in a loud whisper, following Kate.

‘
Sshh
!
Don’t
call her that, someone else will hear you and you’ll get in trouble and then
I’ll
get in trouble and then we’ll
both
be in big trouble,
’
Kate spoke her eyes wide as she looked around to check no one had heard.

‘
Sorry.
’

‘
Do you remember the
Prestwick
accounts? You did the memo for me?
’
Kate asked, showing
Lynn
the file as she put it down on her desk and splattered more confetti on the floor.

‘
Yes I remember, they were thirty seven pages long
-
took me ages to photocopy because the Lady Dragon can’t have even a hint of a paper crease on them,
’
Lynn responded.

‘
Yes, well, these thirty seven pages weren’t the thirty seven pages I finalised, I’m sure of it,
’
Kate told her, passing the information
over
.

‘
I can easily check
,
I save a copy of everything I do in a separate directory. So even if the main directory has been changed I’ll be able to compare the two,
’
Lynn
said.

‘
Oh
Lynn
, you’re a life-saver, could you have a look? I mean it could be that I’m imagining I ever finalised them but I’m sure I spent at least three hours of my life staring at these figures.
’

‘
I’ll have a look, the
Lawrence
file is there by the way, the Lady Dragon said you’d need it,
’
Lynn
spoke.

‘
Great,
’
Kate answered sarcastically.

‘
So, I hear you have a new boyfriend,
’
Lynn
commented.

‘
Sshh
!
’
Kate exclaimed
,
looking over her shoulder at her colleagues in the hope they were all too busy working to pay any attention to
Lynn
’s loud voice.

‘
I think the Lady Dragon is bristling about it. Word in the office is that Colin Sykes is dating one of the trainees,
’
Lynn
spoke in slightly more hushed tones.

‘
Really!
Now that will have got her back up for certain. She’s been sniffing around him since he became a partner.
’

‘
Mmm
, so expect a foul mood for a few weeks, until she sets her sights on another victim. My money’s on Andrew Kent,
’
Lynn
said, speaking of one of the other partners in
Randall’s
and touching her nose with her finger.

‘
Isn’t he married?
’
Kate
enquired
.

‘
Wife left him last summer,
watch
this space.
’

Highbridge
Leisure Centre was only five years old, built between the Princess Diana, Queen of Hearts memorial garden and the BMX ramps. It had a leisure pool, a
twenty five metre
pool,
a
large sports hall and, as Kate was finding out, it had state of the art gym facili
ties with giant flat screen TV
s all across the walls, some showing European football matches
,
others blaring out the latest hits on MTV.

Getting a message to Joel through Elite Escorts had proved to be a fruitless task. The receptionist insisted that she couldn’t give out any pers
onal information and
in fact the only thing she
could
do was book an appointment
,
which required immediate payment. So here Kate was, in her lunch hour, in the middle of a gym, somewhere she hadn’t ever set foot in, feeling awkward and out of place amongst the fit individuals around her.