basic.
She took her first telesales job after some success in door to door sales for an energy company, at the start of her gap year. Subsequent selling over the phone for a rival company proved extremely lucrative and by the time she was halfway through her gap year, she was earning double what she could expect to earn with a decent degree after university. She decided to put university on hold for another year and logged her details with an employment agency specialising in telesales placements. Travel Plan was starting a new division called Travel Plan Dynamic. The idea was to persuade high earners, who were in the habit of building their own trips from a number of suppliers, to leave all the work to them. It was exactly the challenge Samantha was looking for. There were ten telesales operators working in Travel Plan Dynamic and she was by far and away the top earner. After only twelve months trading, Dynamic accounted for twenty eight percent of Travel Plan’s profit and she was earning more than Barrie Billingsgate, the Sales Director. She liked Barrie, he was not the least bit phased by her earning more than him. They had regular lunch meetings to discuss ways of increasing sales which sometimes led to a bonk back at her place but that’s all it was, just a bonk. Her boyfriend was at university and Barrie was married, they both thought of a bonk as no more than having a cigarette, although it was a more enjoyable habit.
She terminated a call to a regular Dynamic customer who had made holiday arrangements through another company offering the same service. When questioned, they all provided a similar answer which amounted to not wishing to name the other company. She was building a picture and it was becoming obvious that a competitor had acquired their holiday history and preferences and offered the same service as Dynamic for twenty percent less. Every case was similar. There was something very odd going on. She switched to ‘internal’ and keyed in Barrie Billingsgate’s extension.
The telephone made Natasha jump. How should she answer? Would he say Barrie or Billingsgate? It had to be Billingsgate.
‘Billingsgate.’
A friendly female voice came on the line. ‘Hi Barrie, it’s Sam, any chance of popping down for a couple of minutes, we seem to have a problem.’
Sam? It was the trollop from Dynamic who was shagging her husband. She made Barrie’s voice sound brusque and dismissive.
‘I’m busy right now. There’s a board meeting in fifteen minutes. Can’t it wait? ’ She had tried calling Barrie to get some information on Dynamic for the meeting, but his mobile was switched off. She had gleaned what she could from last month’s sales figures, which were slightly down on the previous month. What stood out though was Samantha Derby performance, she converted more calls to sales than anyone else in Dynamic and her turnover was more than treble that of the second person in the table. Perhaps she ought to talk to her after all.
‘Sam? Look, I’m sorry if I sounded abrupt. I can spare a couple of minutes. Where shall we meet?
‘Sure,’ said Sam, who had been taken aback by Barrie’s initial reaction. ‘I’ll see you at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll go there right away.’
Natasha breathed a sigh of relief as she put the phone down. She had no idea what Samantha Derby looked like. She didn’t even know where the Dynamic area was on the fourteenth floor.
The temptation was to run, but Barrie would hardly run around the office, so she propelled his body in purposeful strides past the lifts and the toilets to the emergency stairway. Halfway down the first flight she heard the door to the fourteenth floor open and as she turned on the half landing she saw a young blonde girl watching her descend. When Natasha stepped off the bottom step and looked down at Samantha Derby from Barrie’s six feet two, she estimated that she was about five-five, the same height as herself. She was smartly dressed in a knee length navy blue skirt and a crisp white cotton blouse; the top two buttons of the blouse were undone, but it was not enough to suggest that this woman saw herself as a sex kitten. In fact she looked the image of an efficient office worker. She spoke first.
‘Thanks for coming down Barrie. I know you’re busy, but it will probably be quicker if I show you the problem on my computer.’
‘Okay, Sam.’ Natasha tried to sound friendly. ‘Sorry if I sounded a bit off on the phone, but I’ve been up against it this morning.’
She flashed him a devastating smile. ‘I won’t ask you what you’ve been up against, but it’s good to see it’s not a clipboard day. She laughed and Natasha laughed with her. What did she mean – clipboard day?
Sam touched Barrie’s elbow, a familiar, friendly gesture. ‘Come on, I can show you the problem in less than three minutes.’ Natasha followed her through the doorway and past a double row of telesales operatives. So this was the Dynamic section. She nodded to a couple of operatives who looked up as she walked by. Barrie would undoubtedly have addressed them by name. They had name tags, but she was too far away to read them.
Samantha Derby sat down in front of her computer screen and skilfully used the mouse to bring up a new picture. She half turned to Natasha. ‘You will have to stand close behind; I’m going to bring up a spreadsheet of all the customers I’ve called since the beginning of the month. I keep a record for my own benefit.’
Natasha stepped closer and stood behind her chair, relieved that the back was solid and higher than Barrie’s waistline; at least there was no potential for embarrassment should Barrie’s thing start misbehaving itself. Then what Samantha meant by ‘clipboard day’ dawned on her and she wondered if those days coincided with mornings when she was too tired to contemplate sex. She discounted that thought when his penis began to stir. She was looking down at the keyboard as Sam keyed in some instructions which made her breasts jiggle. Natasha forced Barrie’s eyes to look at the screen. Would she become a lesbian if she took Barrie’s thoughts back with her, if and when they changed back to their own bodies?
A long list of names appeared on the screen and Samantha began to scroll down through them. ‘Look at the right hand column. That shows the conversion of sales to calls and as you can see there have been very few for over two weeks. Sally Barnard suggested I was losing it, but I can assure you I’m not.’
‘What has Sally Barnard got to do with it?’
Samantha turned her head and gave Barrie an odd look. ‘Oh, come on Barrie, you know! As head of marketing, she hates the fact that Dynamic was your idea. She’s been watching sales like a hawk and it’s only now, when for some inexplicable reason, our conversion rate is tailing away; she feels she can put the knife in. Her only moan up to now has been what I earn out of it, and what she refers to as my favoured position in your regime.’
‘Do you have a favoured position?’
She turned and looked up at the person she thought was Barrie with a sly grin. ‘Yes, on top – as you well know.’
‘Mine too,’ replied Natasha, without really thinking, then sought to cover her confusion. ‘Any idea what could be happening to Dynamic sales?’
‘I think someone has managed to get hold of our client list. It’s the only possible answer. In telesales you work on averages and my average per call has dropped too fast for it to be a market anomaly.’
‘Do you think Sally could be behind it?’
‘Well, logic would dictate that it has to be an inside job. How could anyone else get hold of our client list?’
Natasha was beginning to hate Sally Barnard. She was trying to destroy her husband and she needed to defend his cause in the board meeting. ‘Can I have a copy of your sales record to take into the Board meeting? Would you mind?’
‘Course not. I’ll take it back two months to show the steady increase, then the rapid decline. How many copies?’
‘Nine if possible. That’ll save anyone having to share.’
‘No problem. It won’t take a few minutes; I’ll bring them up to you.’
‘Great. Thanks Sam.’ Natasha automatically touched Sam on the shoulder. She turned her head and gave a flashing smile. Natasha found it difficult to dislike Sam, even if she was bonking her husband.
When the door bell rang at DebTash Corsetry & Lingerie, Barrie was still going through the presentation routine with Debbie. All items were laid out in order of presentation on the bed in the customer changing room. Curtains had been drawn on the ground floor for privacy and to help Debbie control the lighting as she wanted it. As equal partners in the business, Debbie insisted they should both greet Davina Maypole, the buyer for Naughty but Nice. They ran down the stairs and Debbie opened the door on the second ring.
Davina Maypole was slim and attractive with elfin looks, probably in her early forties, but it was difficult to tell with such women. She was smartly dressed in a black suit trimmed with white and the monochrome theme extended to black and white shoes, white elbow length gloves and a black pillbox hat, with the merest hint of a
