Heller by J.D. Nixon Read Free Book Online Page A

carrying on nervously. “I – I – I
attended to the women’s every need –”
    “You placed
the packages into the boot or the back seat as requested,” he
carried on, interpreting my weasel words.
    “– and it was
a personal joy to me when I gave excellent service.”
    “In other
words, when you received a big tip.”
    I blinked at
him in silence. I had hoped that he would be easy on me after my
ordeal this morning, but I was wrong. He hadn’t been lying about
not doing soft – he was a very hard man. Disconcerted, I rushed on
to speak about the last period of work experience that I was now
pinning all my hopes on.
    “I was a
conduit for ensuring that client’s needs and requirements were
managed in the most efficient and expedient manner.”
    “You worked as
a casual in a call-centre for the local council,” he stated,
mockery evident in his ghost of a smile.
    I didn’t
respond, debating in my mind whether I should immediately stand up
and leave without dignifying him with another word, or if I should
dump the glass of water over his head first.
    He continued,
not giving me the chance to do either, his head tilted to one side.
“Your experience is very limited,” he noted. “I have interviewed
other people for this position who have much more relevant and
recent experience.”
    I sat immobile
and silent and took a deep breath. Trouble was coming.
    “You’re not
really interested in this kind of work, are you? Your real career
is ‘acting’, isn’t it?” he scorned.
    I gritted my
teeth. “I haven’t mentioned anything about acting in my CV,” I
pointed out, determinedly polite. “What would make you think
that?”
    He threw me a
nasty half-smile as he rose, pacing across the office so that I had
to twist my head back-and-forth to keep watching him.
    “Ms Chalmers,
let me make something perfectly clear to you,” he stated coldly.
“My business is security and surveillance. This building contains
extremely sensitive information and also valuable and dangerous
equipment. I have made it as close to a fortress as is humanly
possible. Nobody comes into my building without my say-so and
nobody comes to work for me without being completely
scrutinised.”
    He stopped
pacing for a moment and turned to hold me again with those
eyes.
    “For example,
I know you are the youngest of three children. Your father is a
retired university lecturer and your mother a retired primary
school teacher. You were an average student at school and dropped
out of your undergraduate arts degree in the third year without
graduating. You had a patchy work history and then decided to make
‘acting’ your career.” That emphasis again, as if he thought that
acting ranked right up there next to being a hooker on the scale of
dodgy career choices.
    “How did you
find out all that? It’s a breach of my privacy!” I squeaked
indignantly.
    He sat down
again and pushed the folder that was lying on the coffee table
towards me. “Do you want to read your dossier?” he asked, a
taunting tone to his voice.
    I stared at
the folder with mistrust. Unfortunately though, I’ve always been a
very nosy person and didn’t have the seemliness or the presence of
mind to ignore it. So I picked up that folder, rested it on my lap
and opened it, though not without a sensible dose of dread.
    My mouth gaped
wider with every page I read. It was a nightmare version of This
is Your Life , starring me, Tilly Chalmers. The dossier recorded
every detail of my life, down to the most mundane aspect. Every
school I’d been to, every friend I’d ever had, every subject I’d
studied, my university entrance score, my family’s occupations,
every boyfriend I’d had, their ages, the cars they’d owned, every
job I’d had back to my first career as a checkout chick when I was
fifteen-years-old. All documented right in front of me in black and
white, with a couple of coloured photos thrown in for variety.
Everything about me except my bra size was in