Jane is still upset about being promoted.  

“I don’t want to be one of the oppressors!” she moans. 

“You would rather be one of the oppressed?”

“No.”

“Then stop complaining.”

“I don’t want to be one of the overseers either.”

“Why not?”

“I cannot enforce discipline amongst my colleagues.   It’s like asking Che Guevara to implement income tax rises!”

“Jane, you work for CWS: not The Solidarity Movement.   You are never going to be the next socialist freedom fighter, so long as you work here.”

“Pity.”

“Why did you take a job with a City law firm?”

She shrugs.  “I have absolutely no idea.”

“I did it for the chance to travel,” Liz volunteers, “but what a con that was.  The farthest I’ve ever been is Kidderminster.”

“Think yourself lucky,” Alex sniffs. “My most adventurous trip was to Wood Green Crown Court.   I barely made it out alive.”

The thought of Alex fleeing the clutches of North London’s criminal classes perks Jane up for a moment, but then she lapses into self loathing once again.

“I wanted to champion justice and but now I’m being paid to do their bidding!” She gestures to the Craven Wiley & Sharpe logo on the wall.

“Since when have you have done what you’re paid to do?  Use your new authority to  do what you set out to do but this time change the system from the inside.”

“Like all the best dictators do,” Alex points out. ”Do you think Stalin could have implemented his genocidal purges if he hadn’t been head of the Politburo?”

A light goes on in her eyes.   “You’re right,” she nods. “I shall follow their example.”

I’m assuming she doesn’t mean devising genocidal purges, but, I have no time to worry about this because, Melinda is off sick again.

“She’s got swine flu,” Danielle informs me with a throaty cackle.

“Really?”

“Yeah!  From all the pigs she’s been snogging.”

I am clearly out of the loop on this.  “I thought she was happily co-habiting with Darren?”

She rolls her eyes at my ignorance. “He dumped ages ago.  She’s been out with half of Romford since then.”

“Oh, well,” I try to put a positive spin on this. “At least she isn’t moping about.”

“No chance.”  More cackling.  “She’s making up for lost time!”

“And more!” Lynnette agrees. “I don’t know how she does it.  I can’t find one bloke to snog and she has hundreds of ‘em queueing up.”

Lynnette has been single since 1992.   It’s a sore point.

“Your prince will come,” Celia puts a concerned hand on her arm.

“Yeah?  Well, at this rate, he’ll be a bloody Granddad by the time he shows up!”

“You could always try using Melinda’s surgeon,” Danielle, ever the diplomat, points out.

“Are you saying I need cosmetic enhancement?”

“I you want me to be brutally honest?”  I have a feeling she doesn’t… “Yes.”

“In what sense, exactly?” she squares up.

Don’t tell her, don’t tell her……

Too late.  “Your teeth are uneven, you have wrinkles around your eyes and you could with losing a couple of stone.”

Lynnette is either going to burst into tears or rip her limbs off.  She chooses the latter; springing up from her seat to batter Danielle with the blunt end of a hole punch. 

“Bitch!”

But Danielle is quicker, dodging the grenade with the skill of a lightweight champion. “You asked me!”

“It was a rhetorical question!  I should have known you were too stupid to realise that!”

“You calling me stupid?”

“I can’t see anyone else that fits the description!”

“Cow!”  Danielle  springs forward to take a swipe at Lynnette’s right flank, but Celia jumps up and finds herself on the receiving end of a left hook.  “Aarrgh!”

She drops to the floor clutching her cheek.

“Oh my god!  Sorry Cel!” Danielle is on her knees with remorse. 

“What the blazes is going on here?!”  Jane marches out of her office. 

No one speaks. 

“Well?  What was all that noise about?”

Danielle looks at Lynnette.  Lynnette looks at Danielle.  Then Celia bursts in to tears.  

“Helen?” she turns to me. 

Seeing their stricken faces, I decide to underplay things. “There was a bit of a misunderstanding,” I explain. “Lynnette asked a rhetorical question but Danielle didn’t realise it was rhetorical so she answered it, but this upset Lynnette and then, well, there was an argument and, unfortunately, Celia was just in the wrong place at the wrong time…..”

I throw them “keep quiet and let me handle this,” look, but Danielle just doesn’t know when to shut up.

“She threw tried to throw hole punch at my head!” she points at Lynnette.

“You tried to thump me in the mouth!” Lynnette retorts.

“I did not!”

“You bloody-well did!”

Jane looks at me.  I shrug, apologetically.  

“You do know what this means, don’t you?” she warns them.

“It means: she is a soddin’ nutter,” Danielle huffs.

“It means that I will have to report this to Personnel.”

“WHY?!” they all exclaim, even Celia, who stops sobbing. 

“Because, since The Boss promoted me to Senior Associate, I am obliged to perform certain management functions; one of which is to police office disturbances.”

“But you can’t report us!” Danielle protests.

“Why not?”

“Because, for one thing, I am your secretary!”

“You are also the chief cause of office disturbances,” Jane explains. “If I let you off, I would be accused of favouritism.  No, I’m afraid you have given me no choice but to file an official complaint.”

“You can’t!”

“I’m afraid I can and I shall.   Now, if you would kindly resume your administrative duties, you may succeed in convincing me that you are, at least, a competent assistant, so that I shan’t have to add: “dereliction of duties” to my report as well. ”

Without another word, she spins on her heels and stalks back to her room.

Tyson and Holyfield are silent; unsure of what will befall them when  the dreaded “Personnel” finds out.  They shuffle back to their desks, darting evil looks at one another as I scoop Celia off the floor and bundle her down to First Aid.

An e-mail from Liz awaits me.

“What was all that about?” It reads. “I was too scared to come out of my roomk.”

“I didn’t know who I was more scared of,” I tell her.  “Lynnette and Danielle came to blows, Celia ended up on tears and Jane  transformed herself into DCI Tennison:  Office Law Enforcer.”

“She has changed her tune.”

“Tell me about it.  One minute she’s fighting “Capitalist Oppressors” and the next minute she’s enforcing their values and writing reports to Personnel.”

“Like the KGB,” Liz observes.

A one-woman secret security service?  I hope not.  Imagine the torture techniques she might deploy……..

But I don’t have time to worry about Jane’s miraculous conversion, because a more pressing problem introduces itself.

“Have you read the documents I sent you yesterday?” Mr Harman is on the phone.

“Documents?  No, sorry, I haven’t received anything from you.”

“But I e-mailed your secretary!”

Ah….Melinda strikes again!   No doubt they are sitting in her in-box. 

“My secretary is off sick at the moment, I’m afraid.  Are you able to send them again?”

“No!  I’m away from the office, on business.  I can’t access them from my BlackBerry.”

“Ok, well, not to worry, I’ll see if I can get someone from IT to access her computer.”

“Would you?”

“Of course, no problem.  I’ll call you back when I have read them.”

I call creepy Nigel.

“Can you let me have access to Melinda’s in-box?” I ask him. ”She’s off sick and there are urgent documents in there that I need to read.”

“Really?” he whispers.

“Yes.” 

“I’m afraid you are not qualified to authorise that.”

“Since when?”

“Since the firm implemented the new Associateship Scheme.  Only Senior Associates or Partners may gain entry to another’s in box.”

Gain entry to another’s inbox?  He even manages to make this sound obscene.

“She is my secretary for god’s sake.”

“Rules are rules….”

“Fine.  Wait there.”

I storm down to Jane’s office and throw open the door.  “Can you please tell Nigel that I need access to Melinda’s outlook folder?”

“Yes, but why?”

“Apparently, only Senior Associates and Partners may authorise the entry into another’s inbox.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

She seems pleased by this. “Unlimited access to employee e-mails!  Another beneficial perk.”

“Yes, great.  So will you ask Nigel to give you the codes, or whatever it is he needs to do?”

“Certainly.”

She immediately picks up the phone and tells Nigel to hand them over.  “I shall reset her codes after you’ve been in,” he warns us. “You still have to see approval from the IT team every time you need access.”

“Once will be sufficient,” she tells him.  “We don’t make a habit of snooping on our colleagues.”

Unlike Nigel.

Equipped with Melinda’s secret password, we head down to her desk.  Danielle and Lynnette flick furious glances at Jane, but she is unperturbed. 

“Right, log in,” she hands me the paper.  “This is the code.”

“You have got to be kidding me?”

“Apparently not.  Try it and find out.”

Needing no encouragement I sit down and type: “DavidBeckhamIsATotalSexGod3″.  The machine roars, magically, to life.  Seconds later, we are staring at Melinda’s ”Naked Firemen” screensaver.

“Isn’t that an illegal application?” asks Jane.

“Yes,” I sigh. “She has been told to remove it on more than one occasion, but she never does.  Perhaps you should make a note of it in your new Crimes and Misdemeanours file?”

“Perhaps.”

I click on Melinda’s Outlook Inbox and open her e-mail screen.  There, sitting at the bottom of the page, is the e-mail from Mr Harman, sent at 9.38 am yesterday morning.   I forward it on to myself and am just about to close the folder when Jane points to a string of messages from “Heavenli Bodyz ”.

“What are they?” she whispers.

“I don’t know.”

“Have a look.”

“I’m not authorised.”

“I am,” she flashes a mischievous grin and clicks on the first of them.

“Dear Sirs

Thank you for your kind efforts last week.  I very much enjoyed the show.”

Kind regards

 JC.”

“Who is JC?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s see what the others say.”

“Dear Heavenli Bodyz.

Your presentation was excellent.  I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

Kind regards

Keith.”

And so they go on.

“What that’s all about?”

I shrug. “‘Heavenli Bodyz’ sounds like a Lap Dancing Club.”

“Perhaps that’s what Melinda does in the evenings!” Jane snorts.

“Not unless she is allowed to do it sitting down, with a cup of tea and a packet HobNobs in her hand.”

“It could be a new fetish: lazy secretaries with biscuits.”

“I can’t see that catching on.  Not when it takes three weeks to get any action.”

“No,” Jane agrees.  But then another thought occurs to her. “But she did have her boobs done and if she is a secret lap dancer, it might account for her sluggishness during the day!”

It might.   But then so might genetic abnormality.  Or Temazepam.

“Do you know anything about Heavenli Bodyz?” I poke Danielle.

She flashes me an irritable look, and unfastens her headphones.

“Do you know anything about something called Heavenli Bodyz?”

Her eyes flicker.  “Nah.”

“Sure?” Jane scrutinises her face.

“Yeah.”

I let it pass and close the machine.  Jane, meanwhile, continues her ascent to partnership, by warning the trainees how to behave at the Christmas Party.

“Do not wear in appropriate outfits,” she tells them, “Do not drink more than two glasses of wine and do not take part in any of the, so called, ‘entertainment’. ”

I seem to recall her doing all those things, and more, every year….. 

“Is it ok to ask the DJ for requests?” Hannah asks.

“Yes, but only if they are not of the Hip Hop variety.  The Partnership does not want any bumping and grinding on the dance floor.”

I leave her to her lecture and tell Mr Harman his documents have arrived. 

But this is just the beginning, having threatened to report the secretaries to Personnel and warned the trainees about in appropriate behaviour Jane’s reign of terror continues throughout the afternoon.  The paralegals are heard murmuring murderously about her “new procedures,” the reprographics team threaten to go on strike and the filing clerk looks like she might burst into tears.   Even Tarquin –  at his worst – has never had this effect on the staff.

“I told you she would become a monster when she had a bit of power,” Alex advises.

“Give a girl a wand and she’ll turn into a witch,” Liz agrees.

“A very wicked one, in this case.”

“It didn’t take her long to abandon her proletariat roots.  I thought she might have kept them until Christmas, at least.”

“If she’s like after a month, imagine what she’ll be like after a year…….”

It’s too horrible to think of. 

“Ah well, at least it proves that there are no principled lawyers anywhere in the City.   If a little promotion can turn  our esteemed resistance leader, into a collaborator, then no one is safe.”

“What’s all this?” a voice, which sounds a lot like Jane’s, demands.

“What does it look like?”

“Like three of my colleagues holding a secret rendezvous.”

Is this the moment she turns us over to The Gestapo?

“You are not one of us any more,” Alex faces her.

“What are you talking about?”

“We don’t go around bullying the paralegals and making the filing clerks cry,” Liz points out.

She laughs. ”Since when have you bothered about the paralegals?  You said they were the laziest troop of clowns you had ever encountered, last week.”

“That’s not the point.  I wouldn’t use my management power to bully them.”  She puts her hands on her hips defiantly.

Jane roars with laughter.  “Of course you would!  If you had any.  And now I have some I’m using it.”

“And now it’s our turn?”

She laughs again. “You told me to change the system from the inside, so that’s exactly what I am doing!”

“Reporting the secretaries to Personnel is not changing the system, it’s enforcing it.”

“I’m not going to report them.”

“You told them you were.”

“I had to make them think that,” she laughs. “They don’t respect me but they do respect Personnel – and if they think I some influence there, then so much the better.”

We exchange, puzzled looks.

“But what about the filing clerk and the reprographics staff?” Alex perists.

“Same thing.   I told them a few home truths.  My guess is that, once they’ve got over their initial upset,  our filing will finally be done correctly and our copying will come back in one piece. ”

“So you’re not policing management policy?”

“Not at all!” her eyes glisten with the thought of it.  “I’m just redressing the balance of power.  As I have always done.”

We let out a collective sigh: Jane is not a corporate spy afterall.

“Well, in that case,” Alex suggests, ”Get the receptionists to take coherent messages.”

“Tell Accounts to stop chasing us for the partners’ bills.” Liz agrees.

“And ask Catering to stock chocolate HobNobs in the fifth floor kitchen.” I add.

“My power may be increased, but I am not omnipotent!” she laughs.

Pity.   Free chocolate HobNobs would make my day so much more tolerable.

“I can’t believe you thought I had gone over to the dark side,” she looks around.   “Me!  Of all people.   Meet me this evening,  in The Star Bar, and I will prove my iconoclastic credentials.”

We agree.  At Eight o’clock we are sitting in a secluded booth when a young woman, who seems vaguely familiar, approaches us.

“Helen Bailey?” she asks.

“Yes?”

“Amelia Walker.”

Philip Carlton’s nemesis!  What is she doing here?

“Pleased to meet you, Amelia,” I hesitate.

“You too,” she smiles. “Thanks for the cheque.”

“Thank your ex-boss.”

“I have nothing to thank him for, he was lucky he got off so cheaply.”

There is an awkward pause.

“How is your new job going?” 

“I don’t have a new job.  Well, at least, not yet.  I’m going travelling for a year and then I’ll see where I end up.”

“Travelling? But I thought you were going to work for a client?”

“What made you think that?”

In fact, a private detective,  hired, at great expense, to follow her.  But I can’t tell her that.

“Oh, er, I think Carlton mentioned that you were nterviewing with a client.”

She breaks into a broad grin. “Yes, we thought you would think that.”

Now I’m really confused. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“It was all Jane’s idea.  She suggested I should make you think that.   It wasn’t hard.  I put my suit on, let your detective follow me to the building and then had lunch with one of my friends there. ”

Jane’s idea!

“But – !”

“Jane and I have a mutual friend.  She contacted her and passed messages, about what you were telling her, to me.  Then we concocted a plan to relieve Carlton of as much money as possible.”

“And we fell for it!”

“I’m afraid so.  But, really, he was lucky.   If I had gone to Court, as I was intending, he would  have suffered much more.   All the allegations I made against him were true: he is a calculating, malicious pervert.”

“I see you’ve met Amelia,” Jane arrives.

We all turn to stare at her.

“Yes!” I shake my head in astonishment.  “The two of you completely hoodwinked me.”

“I know! I t worked better than we could possibly have imagined!”  

She looks like a naughty school girl. 

“I wish I’d paid you more, for ingenuity.” I concede.

“I’m happy with what I’ve got.  Now, let me buy the drinks.”

She skips off to the bar, leaving us to confront Jane.

“You helped the opposition.  Are you crazy?” Liz demands.  “The Boss will sack you if he ever finds out!”

“He won’t find out, will he?  And, besides, if he does, so what?  Being a “Senior Associate” is not really much better than being an “Assistant”.   At the end of the day, we’re still slaves to the system and if I can do anything to even up the fight, then I will.”

“Until you make partnership,” I point out.

“That will never happen…..” she grins. “I will have taken my seat in Parliament before then.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely,” she nods.  “All this soul searching has made me realise my vocation.  Sod partnership politics at CWS; the country needs me as Prime Minister.”

“Like it needs a nuclear war!”  Liz guffaws.

“You will be sorry you said that, when I’m in charge.”

“You will never do anything bad to me, I know too much.”

“We all do,” I add. “Don’t forget that when you’re in Number 10.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she nods, ”I won’t.  After I’ve thrown Tarquin and The Boss in The Tower, I shall issue an order freeing all City lawyers from servitude and proclaim a national holiday: Assistant Emancipation Day!”

“When hell freezes over and pigs start to fly, give me a call,” Alex observes.

“If I can get our filing done properly and our copying back on time, running the Country will be a breeze,” she laughs.

And, for once, she has a point.

NEWSFLASH:  check out AA’s take on City Survial tactics in Legal Week: http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/blog-post/1565167/city-assistant-survival-guide