As Grindman sets to work stalking Amelia, The Boss decides it’s time to give us another of his pep talks.

“Some of you may have noticed that I have not taken a summer holiday this year.”

All of us has noticed.   We’ve talked of nothing else.

“I did not think it was appropriate for me to go swanning off The Med, whilst some of my contemporaries were joining the dole queues. It was my duty to remain at my post and drive the litigation team forward.   It is a small sacrifice to pay for our clients.”

Yes, especially when they’re paying him £500 an hour….

“So, since I am leading by example, it won’t surprise you to hear that I am expecting you to make some small sacrifices too.”

I feel an announcement coming on.   

“That is why, this year, we have decided to abandon pay review.”

Abandon pay review!  That can only mean one thing.

“You’re freezing our wages?!” Liz gasps.

“We are deferring increases until the recession is over.”

“But the recession isn’t touching us!   We’re busier than ever!”

“That may be true, but, it is touching our colleagues in the corporate departments and it is only fair that we show solidarity with them.”

“How can that be fair?!” Jane sits up. ”They all earn much more than us to start off with.  Why not ask them to take a pay cut?”

“How would that have looked?” he puts on his patronising teacher-pupil voice. “One department having pay cuts whilst the other is having pay rises?”

“Like economics in action!” she retorts.

“Dear dear dear,” he shakes his head. “The fairest way to treat everyone is simply to maintain the status quo.”

“So they sit around playing Solitaire and drawing their enormous wages, whilst we do all the work for no extra money?!”

He gives her one of his silencing looks.

“You are all very well paid,” he points out. “Think of all those poor people at the benefits’ offices; they would kill to have jobs like yours.”

Here we go again.   The old “lucky to have a job” routine.   It seems to work, until Jane launches a decisive counter attack.

“Why can’t the corporate partners sacrifice some of their inflated drawings?” she demands.

The Boss looks as if he’s been stabbed. “Sacrifice drawings?”

“Yes,” she nods. “They could sacrifice a tiny proportion of their enormous pay to reward us for keeping the firm afloat.”

There are mutterings of agreement across the room.

“Out of the question,” hisses The Boss.

“Why?”

“Because, without the partners having built up the firm, you lot would not have jobs at all.”

“Without us doing all the work, neither would they!” she retorts.

“Yeah!” we nod; the mutterings becoming more mutinous.  

“If you don’t like it, you know what you can do,” he eyeballs us all.  

“There are plenty of litigation jobs going at the moment,” Jane points out.

For a moment, he looks like he might swat her, like an irritating wasp, but then he changes his mind and grins.

“Although there will be no immediate increase in wages,” he advises, “I appreciate the hard work you are all putting in and I have, therefore, persuaded the partnership to implement a new rewards system in our department.”

We exchange, “how are they planning to placate us this time?” glances. 

“Free milk at play-time?” Jane whispers.  “Or gold stickers if we do something good?”

She’s not far off.  

“I am implementing a new hierarchy of responsibility depending on three criteria:  experience, ability and attitude.  It will be graded and each one of you will be allotted a new title, according to your ranking.”

“Fancy titles!” she laughs. “No extra money but a shiny new name for the same boring  old job.”

“As you have long complained,” The Boss continues, “We are one of the few remaining City few which do not have intermediate ranks between partner and assistant, well, now we will.    They will will be as follows:  assistant, associate, senior associate and partner.  We shall carry out the assessment as part of the appraisal process.  I hope you will appreciate that, although we are not in a position to reward you financially at the moment, you shall be rewarded metaphorically.”

Whoo hoo.  Metaphorical rewards are the best kind!

“What about those who don’t get rewarded metaphorically?” Alex asks.  “What if you decide to keep us all as assistants?”

“We shall not do that.   The assistant category will, henceforth, denote the very lowest level of experience and ability.  I hope that, after you many years with the firm, the partnership will find you sufficiently able to attain a slightly higher rank.”

“Will senior associates be able to bully junior associates?” Jane queries.

“I hope so,” Tarquin smirks.

The Boss shakes his head. “If there is any bullying carried out in this team,” he replies, “it shall be carried out by me.  And no one else.”

“Will senior associates get better perks?”

“Such as?”

“Better offices?  Better secretaries?”

“I was not aware that any of the offices were any better or any worse than the others?”

This is true.  They are all dark, airless boxes of chipboard……..except his, and Miranda’s

“But you do accept that the qualitiy of secretarial support is variable?”

“As far as I am aware, there is only one truly decent secretary in our team, and she works for me!” he laughs.

This is also true.   No one argues.

“Good,” he surveys the room. “Now we have established that, we can all get back to the business for which we are employed.  There are still ten potentially chargeable hours left before sundown.  Chop chop!”

He dismisses us with a clap of his hands.  

We make the familiar trudge back to the offices in our usual poor humour.

“How are they gonna divvy us up, do you think?” Alex asks.

“We should be less concerned with how and more concerned with why,” Jane sniffs.  “They are not doing this for our benefit, I can guarantee that.”

“But, The Boss said it was to compensate for our lack of pay-rise.”

“Since when have you believed anything The Boss said?”

“Er….” He nods, acceptingly.

“I’m not sure I want to be an ‘associate’ anyway,” sighs Liz.  “It implies a much more active relationship with the partners and mere ‘assistant’.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “I don’t, necessarily, want people to think that I ‘associate‘ with them; cos I don’t.  I’m as downtrodden and bullied by them as I ever was.”

“More so,” I laugh. “It gets worse as we get more qualified.”

“Very true!  Perhaps he should rename us: assistant, servant and slave!  That would be more accurate.”

“Oh well,” Liz smiles. “At least Tarquin will be happy. If he makes “senior associate” It will be the first time he’s had a fancy title since he was Head Boy.”

“It could be the last one too, the way his partnership campaign is going.”

But, in fact, Tarquin isn’t happy.

“This is just another way to pacify those of us who have been kept from the partnership table for far too long,” he grumbles.

“But isn’t it a step in the right direction?” I ask.

“No. It’s just another meaningless form of subjugation.”

No one seems very happy.  Except Dan, who thinks “assistant” makes him sound like a PA.”

“I’m glad they’re upgrading us,” he tells me.  “I’m fcd up with my mates at the bar laughing at my silly title.  ‘Assistant solicitor’ makes us sound like we’re only half trained.”

A good point.  But not one I have ever been concerned with.  

“I’m surprised an alpha-male like you would be worried about a title,” Jane says, mischievously. “Personally, I don’t need a name to make me feel empowered.”

“You must have more self confidence than I do,” he smirks.

Liz practically chokes on her coffee. 

“Something the matter?” he asks her.

“If self-confidence was an Olympic sport,” she sniffs. “You would be the gold medallist.”

“Au contraire,” he shakes his head. “I have lots of insecurities.”

“You hide them well.”

Whilst we chew over the surprising turn of events, someone used to dealing everyone’s people’s insecurities, turns up for his fortnightly briefing.

“‘Allo ‘Elen.”

“Hello Mr Grindman.”

“Call me Gary.  Everyone else does.”

“Gary.”

That doesn’t sound right.  He is not a ”Gary”.  He is a Grindman: small, round and Dickensian.”

“I’ve got some interestin’ stuff for you this week,” he sits down and takes two large Viennese fingers in one go.

 ”Mr Carlton will be glad to hear that.”

“‘E won’t, I can assure you of that.”

“Oh yes?” My interest is piqued.

“Yeah, in fact, I think ‘e’ll be pretty peeved by what I’ve got to tell ‘im.”

“Well, go on then.   Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“All right.  Well, these are my daily records.   As you will see, I trailed the suspect for seven out of a possible ten working days.”

“What about the other three?”

“She didn’t go out.  Anyway, in summary: day 1-4 were pretty uninspiring; she spent a lot of time at the local gym, Sainsburys, the dentists and meeting friends for coffee.  But then, on day five, something interestin’ ‘appened.”

“What?” I can barely stand it.

“She visited number Forty Seven, Helton Street.”

“And why is that significant?”

“Well, to start with, I didn’t know.  It’s a big office block, housing three of four big companies.   But then I did some further digging and I think I may have sussed where she went.”

“Where?”

“To see one of her ex-clients.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  One of the firms is called Chance Investments; it’s a big property management/finance company.  I understand that Carlton’s team, does a lot of work for them.”

With an enormous grin on his face, he hands me copies of articles from The Lawyer and Legal Week proclaiming the “deals” Carlton has done for them.

“Ok, well, that’s great information, but what was she doing there?”

“Well, that’s the curious thing.  She seems to have had two meetings with them over a period of a week.  She was certainly in the building twice.  If you want my guess, she was interviewing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I say that cos she had her suit on and cos I know she was having other interviews at the time too.”

“Where?”

“Law firms.”

“And how do you know they were interviews?”

“I rang up and asked.”

“You rang up?”

“Yeah, after each legal interview, I rang their switchboards and pretended to be her recruitment agent.  Some of them confirmed it; others told me to bugger off.”

“Did you call Chance Investments?”

“Yeah.  They told me to bugger off.  I even tried buttering up their security guard, but he wouldn’t talk either.  Seems they’ve had some trouble in the past.”

“Ok,” I try to take stock and sound professional, but inwardly I am rejoicing at this turn of events. “So, what do you plan to do next?”

“That’s really up to you and Carlton.  If you want me to continue digging or surveying, I will do but, to be honest, she’s a pretty boring target.  I can’t imagine there will be much more to discover.”

“Right, well, thanks for your assessment.  I shall let Mr Carlton know.   There’s a chance he may wish to speak to you himself.”

“Happy to tell him what I know.  I’ll write a report, of course, but if you ask me, ‘e’s wasting ‘is time.  She’s just an ordinary girl.  Not like some of the scrum-bag weasels I usually tail.”

“No bottom bearing on this one?”

“Unfortunately not,” he winks.

Clutching Grindman’s loot, I leap back up the stairs to see The Boss.  He is sitting behind his vast oak desk, reading The Daily Mail.

“Ah, Helen,” he beckons. “What did that unpleasant individual have to say for himself?”

“Actually, he has unearthed some intriguing information.”

“Really?” he sounds sceptical.

“Yes, I know you don’t like him, but he’s really a very good detective.  He manages to get himself into all sorts of unusual places. You wouldn’t believe some of the things he’s been telling me about what goes on in hotel bedrooms…”

I say this with an innocent, girlish giggle, but the horrified look on his face makes me want to laugh out loud.

He sniffs.  “Well, that’s why I dislike him.  Anyone who makes a living like that is to be distrusted, in my view.”

“But he’s only offering a service,” I reason. “Think of all those poor, disgruntled partners who have no idea their husband or wife is getting up to no good with the servants…”  ha ha ha!

“Well, we’re not here to hold a moral debate Helen, kindly tell me what he has unearthed about Ms Williams.”

I fill him in.

“It seems to me that if she is on the verge of obtaining a position with Mr Carlton’s biggest client, he might be best served by keeping her sweet.”

“Or putting a spanner in the works,” he adds.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, Carlton is not going ot want a disgruntled ex-employee giving him instructions is he?  Or – worse – not giving him instructions!  Think of the damage she could do?”

“Perhaps he should have thought about that before he sacked her.”

He fires me a warning look.   But I am not going to be silenced.

“If he wades in and loses her this job, she will add it to her claim.  I am sure of it,” I go on. “Then there will be more bad press which will drag Chance Investments in and then he’ll lose them as a client in any event.   If you want my opinion the best thing he can do is buy her good will with as much money as it takes.”

He ponders this for some time.  And finally looks up.   “On this one and only occasion, I think you may be right.”

He calls Carlton to fill him in.  Judging by the gargled noises coming from the other end of the phone, I think he may be having a seizure. 

At least I hope he is.

It would save us all a lot of bother.

“Chaaaaannccee Inveeeeeessstmeeents!” he splutters.

“It would appear so.”

More gargling. 

“In the circumstances, we have to recommend settlement at the earliest opportunity and on the best possible terms.”

“Seetttttttttlllllleeemmmmeeeeennt!”

“I’m afraid so.   We’ve been weighing it up and we think the best thing you can do is buy her good will.”

“I WILL NOT!”

“Then you may lose your biggest client.”

“I will call them immediately.  Warn them about her!” he fumes.

“Do that and you provide her with more ammunition.”

“I don’t care!”

“You will when it drags your biggest client into your murky little employment dispute.”

“MURKY!”

“It’s looking pretty dismal from where I’m sitting.”

He falls silent.   “I shall have to square this with the partnership board,” he says at last.

“We will await instructions.”

The line goes dead without a reply.   I feel as if I’ve just stood through the eye of a tornado.  The Boss glances at me with a curious, surprised gaze.  As if he is seeing me for the first time.

“He would make a terrible witness,” I observe.

“Yes,” he agrees.  “You have done well with this case Helen.”

“Thank you,” I nod.  “It has been a challenge.”

“Dealing with people who are older and more experienced than you are is never easy.”

“Especially when one of them is a senior partner, in a rival firm.” I agree. “Although actually,” I pause. “I think you’ll find it’s the younger ones you have to watch out for.”

He laughs. “On this occasion, I have to agree.”

Let’s hope it is the first of many.