Chapter 23
AMBER
Two Months Before
Rob Harvey, my line manager at the unimaginatively named Cavity Wall Solutions, is the kind of man you probably wouldn’t notice if you walked past him in the street.
Single and in his early forties, he is wholly unremarkable.
Everything about him is grey. His cheap suit, his tie, his thinning hair.
There is even a greyish tinge to his pallor.
He told me during my interview that he’d worked at CWS since he left school, like it was something to be proud of.
After barely glancing at my CV and asking a couple of perfunctory questions about my last job in telesales, he offered me a position on the spot.
I couldn’t believe my luck. And if, when we shook hands, he held mine a little too long for comfort, I brushed any misgivings I had aside.
It was steady work, close to home, and Nessa had started working there the year before. Besides, I needed the money.
It was in my second week at CWS that I noticed Rob’s tendency to stand a little too closely to people by the water cooler or brush up against them as he sauntered through the office.
When I say people, I mean women. It was a standing joke among us that you only ventured into the small photocopying room on the ground floor when you knew he was either on the phone or in a meeting.
A joke that, when you think about it, wasn’t very funny at all.
Perhaps we should’ve complained to HR, or at least called him out for his creepy behaviour, but no one ever did, because in the cramped offices of CWS he was leader of his own little kingdom and no one dared to question him.
During my first appraisal, I sat with my hands clasped in my lap and tried to focus as Rob listed my shortcomings. Sloppy timekeeping. Terrible call times. A low conversion rate.
‘But my customer satisfaction rates are the highest in the team,’ I countered, and it was true. Apart from Nessa, talking to customers was the only good bit about the job and they enjoyed chatting as much as I did.
‘Your call times are twice as long as everyone else’s and your satisfaction rates are meaningless if you’re not selling anything. You’re not meeting your targets, Amber. Something needs to change or I’m going to have to let you go.’
I sat up straighter in the chair and assured him I would pull my socks up.
‘Socks? Surely you can do better than that.’ I felt the heat of his gaze as his eyes roved over me.
‘Maybe if you wore stockings we wouldn’t need to be having this conversation.
’ He shuffled the papers on his desk, suddenly businesslike.
‘Now, run along. Some of us have work to do. We’ll have a catch-up in a month.
Make sure you’re hitting your targets by then, please, or there’ll be consequences. ’
I naively assumed he was talking about closer monitoring of my calls or, perhaps, more training. I had no idea what he really meant.
I found out to my cost on Good Friday. Not that there was anything good about it. We only had a skeleton team working because, according to Rob, people’s focus wasn’t on their cavity walls at Easter. No shit, Sherlock.
Nessa had gone home to Manchester to spend the long weekend with her parents. She’d invited me too, but I was skint and CWS paid time-and-a-half on bank holidays.
I’d been surprised when Rob turned up at work, if I’m honest. But there he was, watching us through the windows of his office, as we cold-called unsuspecting members of the public who were about as likely to sign up for cavity wall insulation as they were to fly to the moon.
Rob disappeared for lunch just after noon and I half hoped he’d decide to take the afternoon off because the atmosphere was so much more relaxed when he wasn’t around. But at half past two he reappeared, and at a quarter to three he summoned me to his office.
‘Good luck,’ muttered Denise from the booth next to mine. ‘He’s spent the last couple of hours in the pub, if the fumes are anything to go by.’
‘Brilliant.’ I put down my headset, straightened my top and tramped over to his office.
The blinds had been pulled down, which sent a small sliver of fear through me.
But though Rob was a sleaze, everyone knew he was basically harmless.
One of those smarmy guys who might look but wouldn’t dare touch.
And there were half a dozen people in the call centre. I’d be fine.
I knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ he cried, full of bonhomie, which threw me for a second as I’d been expecting a bollocking for something or other.
‘You wanted me?’
‘I do. I mean, I did.’ He snickered. ‘I need you to have a look at the photocopier for me. The paper keeps getting stuck.’
‘I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. I don’t really know how it—’
‘Oh, come on, a bright girl like you? I’m sure you can work it out.’ He smiled, but his eyes remained cold, and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
I sent Denise a silent plea for help as Rob opened the door, dipped his head and said, ingratiatingly, ‘Please, after you.’ But she was on another call, her focus on her screen, her pen tapping a tattoo on the pad of paper on her desk.
My gaze darted round the room looking for anyone else whose help I could enlist but, like Denise, they were all too busy trying to flog cavity wall insulation to notice me.
I could feel Rob’s gaze on my back as he followed me down the stairs to the ground floor.
Because it was a bank holiday, there was no one on reception, which added to my sense of unease.
But I quickened my step and told myself to get a grip.
Rob wouldn’t dare try anything on when there were people in the building.
No one would be that stupid, or that arrogant.
I pushed the door to the photocopying room open with my hip and switched on the strip light.
The room was small and square, with tiny windows looking out on to the half-empty car park.
To the left was the photocopier, a huge, ancient Xerox that had probably photocopied its fair share of body parts at drunken office parties over the years.
The opposite wall was taken up with floor-to-ceiling cupboards filled with stationery.
Rob nodded at the red light blinking on the control panel of the photocopier. ‘The error light’s on.’
‘Um, I think that means a piece of paper’s jammed?’ I bent down to check the tiny display screen. ‘I’m really not sure how to fix it. You’d have been better off asking Tom or Phillip.’
‘I didn’t want to ask Tom or Phillip,’ he said silkily. ‘I wanted you.’