Past Secrets. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ and risk being overheard, than to say, ‘It’s that horrible bastard from Brooks FX Stockbroking on the phone and I’m not talking to him, so you’d better.’

      William Brooks, the aforementioned company’s managing director, was yet again looking for a personal assistant. This was his third search in six months, the previous two assistants having decided to leave his employment abruptly.

      Little Island also supplied temps, and only that morning, Faye had been on the phone to Mr Brooks’s current temp who said she was giving it a month more, ‘Because the money’s so good, Faye, but after that, I’m out of here. He’s a pig. No, strike that. Unfair to pigs.’

      ‘We have no PAs on our books that will do for him.’ Philippa, who was responsible for Mr Brooks, scanned through the file wearily. ‘Out of last week’s interviews, we found two wonderful candidates and he doesn’t like either of them. I don’t know what he wants.’

      ‘I do. He’s after a Charlize Theron doppelgänger who can type, operate Excel and doesn’t mind picking up his dry-cleaning or listening to his dirty jokes,’ said Faye.

      ‘If such a person existed, she wouldn’t want to work for a fat, balding executive who goes through secretaries faster than I get through Silk Cut Ultra,’ Philippa said with feeling. She hated William Brooks. The only person who seemed to be able to handle him was Faye, who somehow made William rein in the worst parts of his personality and who stared him down into submission. Philippa wished she could glare at men in the steely way Faye did. Mind you, the steely gaze seemed to scare guys off too, because in the years Philippa had known Faye, she’d never had a man around. She couldn’t imagine Faye with a guy, anyway. There was something about Faye, something about the look on her face when the computer repairman came in and flirted with everyone in the office, which suggested Faye was one of those women who had no interest in men.

      ‘It’s a prestigious account,’ Faye pointed out gently. ‘We’ve made a lot of money out of Brooks FX and having them as clients looks great on our prospectus. William is the fly in the ointment but it would be sensible to work with him.’

      Recruitment was a delicate balance. Finding the right person for the right job didn’t sound too hard in principle, but, as Faye had discovered during her ten years in the industry, it could be impossible in practice. The right person in the right job might suddenly realise that her boss (sweet on recruitment day) was a control freak who insisted on just two loo breaks a day, didn’t allow hot drinks at the desk in case coffee spilled on the keyboard and thought that paying a salary meant he owned her, body and soul.

      ‘The right PA for William Brooks exists,’ Faye said. ‘And we’ll find her.’

      ‘Only if someone comes up with a PA robot,’ muttered Philippa. ‘They won’t complain if they get their bums pinched.’

      ‘He’s pinched somebody’s bum?’ This was news to Faye. Difficult clients were one thing, sexual harassment was another.

      ‘Well…’ Philippa squirmed. She wasn’t supposed to say. The second assistant they’d placed with William had phoned her up in tears.

      Faye looked grim. ‘Tell me. Chapter and verse.’

      Philippa told her and gained some satisfaction from the steely look on Faye’s face.

      ‘You’ll talk to him?’ Grace asked warily, also seeing the look.

      ‘I’ll talk to him,’ Faye agreed.

      The women around the table grinned at each other. Mr Brooks was about to be taken down a peg or two. If only they could witness it, but they wouldn’t. Because Faye was so famously discreet.

      After the meeting, Faye poured herself another coffee and shut the door to her sanctum.

      She loved her job. Recruitment suited her perfectly because it was about placing the right person in the right job and to a woman who liked the towels in her airing cupboard folded just so and in the correct place, it was very satisfying indeed. People were not towels, but life might have been easier if they were.

      Over the years, she’d discovered that the main skill was interviewing potential employees and working out whether a certain job and company would suit them. With no training whatsoever, Faye turned out to be a natural at it.

      ‘It’s like you can work out precisely what sort of person they are from just twenty questions,’ Grace said admiringly.

      ‘Yes, but you’ve got to know which twenty questions to ask,’ Faye said. She was justifiably proud of her ability, if a little amused. It was odd being successful in business by seeing through people’s façades to the character within, when the biggest problems in her private life had come from being unable to do just that.

      ‘It’s easy to suss people out when you’re not involved with them,’ she added. ‘You might never have met them before but it’s possible to gauge fairly soon whether someone is hard-working, easy-going, anxious, a team player, whatever.’

      In the early days, they only recruited secretarial staff and the competition was vicious, but the combination of Faye’s talent and Grace’s business savvy meant the company took off. Then, there would have been no question of dropping difficult clients: they needed everyone they could get. But not any more, as William Brooks was about to find out. Recruitment was a small business where everybody knew everybody. Faye phoned a couple of her old colleagues, now with other agencies, and asked what the word was on William Brooks. Fifteen minutes later, she hung up the phone a lot wiser.

      After a moment or two of deep thought, she dialled the number for Brooks FX. She was put straight through to Mr Brooks, probably because he thought she bore news of a suitable PA with the required Miss World physique.

      ‘Well,’ he snapped. ‘Found anyone?’

      ‘I’m not sure Little Island is the right recruitment agency for you,’ Faye began blandly.

      ‘What?’ He was instantly wrong-footed, she knew. Few agencies could afford to turn down business.

      ‘As you know, we work with Davidson’s and Marshal McGregor.’ She named the two biggest stockbroking firms in the country, both of which could buy and sell Brooks FX with the contents of their petty cash boxes. ‘And we have excellent relationships with both those companies, but you do appear to have peculiar requirements, Mr Brooks.’

      ‘I’m exacting, that’s all,’ he snapped. ‘You’ve been sending me morons. Call yourselves a recruitment agency…’

      ‘You’re more than exacting,’ Faye interrupted, feeling cold rage course through her. She’d planned to do this the official way, but it was clear that Brooks needed the unorthodox approach. ‘Let’s put it this way, Mr Brooks, if we were offering sports massages, I believe you’d be the client insulting our therapists by asking for a massage with a “happy ending”.’

      ‘What?’ exploded out of him again, and Faye grinned to herself. ‘Happy ending’ was code for a massage with sexual services included, the sort only available in red-light districts.

      ‘How dare you…?’

      Probably nobody had ever talked to William Brooks this way. She knew his sort: a bully. And, importantly, she now knew some even less pleasant things about him.

      ‘We have our reputation to consider too, СКАЧАТЬ