When Rita took over as departmental head, the working environment changed abruptly. She had been head hunted from another company when George took early retirement. He had been an easy boss to get on with. He had a natural authority and had been with the company since a pair of young entrepreneurs set it up thirty years before, but his health had deteriorated, partly due to the way he drove himself, and when his doctor told him he was killing himself, he took the hint and quit. Under his guidance his staff had worked extremely hard, but he was such a competent man manager that no one ever complained, and the department always met its targets.
Rita was a very different proposition. She was in her early thirties and had made her way up the promotion ladder at her old firm by a combination of great ability and total ruthlessness. She was very much a woman in what was primarily a man's world, and she was prepared to trample any one underfoot to get to the top. This new job was going to bring her a fresh challenge that she planned to meet head on, and she didn't propose to court popularity to succeed, and, as a result, she soon became thoroughly unpopular, not only with the men but the women also. Her arrogance was exacerbated by the fact that she was brilliant at everything except personal relations, so that there was no chink of incompetence in her armour.
Just to add salt to the wounds, she was a very good-looking woman. She dressed very soberly, always wearing business suits, usually with knee length skirts, shoes with reasonably high heels and dark stockings, showing off slim ankles. She always wore white blouses, buttoned to the neck, and no jewellery. Her hair was pulled back from her face, and she wore no make up, although she spent quite a lot of time and money on skin creams. The end product was to make it clear that she was a manager first and a woman second. Inevitably the discussions that went on behind her back - mainly in the men's toilets - was centred on, firstly, what a bitch she was, and, secondly, what she would look like naked, and some of the younger men talked about the possibility of putting her in the family way to get rid of her. Needless to say, no one had any suggestions about how that might be achieved - as one man said "She'd take you in and blow you out in bubbles!" So, several months passed in a state of uneasy truculence. There was no doubt that she was achieving good results, but several of the staff were actively looking for other jobs.
When George had been due to retire, it was generally expected that John would inherit his position. He had been George's deputy for several years and was a competent and loyal employee, generally highly regarded within the company, and this would certainly have happened if the company had not taken on a new young Human Resources Director (that's Personnel Manager for those of you older readers) who believed that anyone who had been in the same job for more than a year could have no ambition and was unsuited for promotion. Thus, John was overlooked, and this did little for his morale. However, he liked his job and was prepared to give Rita time to settle in and see if he could get along with her, but, after a few months, he started looking for other employment as he couldn't tolerate the regular criticism and bossiness. Ironically, she had a very high regard for his work, but would never admit it to him, as she thought that the best results were achieved when people were afraid for their jobs.
John was thirty-eight years old, tall and good-looking. He had married young, and was happily looking forward to being a father, when his wife was killed in a car crash. Left a widower at thirty, he still lived in the house he and his wife had had built together, and had had several desultory affairs, but never found a woman with whom he could consider living on a long-term basis. As he had no one to go home to, it was easy for him to put in extra hours, or to make visits to customers which could involve several days away from home. Needless to say, Rita exploited this ruthlessly, and he found himself doing much more travelling than before. This had the advantage of getting him away from Rita's constant carping, but also gave her the opportunity to deal directly with his staff while he was away, often reorganising projects that he had set up.
He had spent many hours recently with the rest of his staff compiling a bid for a major project which would be worth a substantial amount over a long period of time, and would take the company to a very high standing in their world. When the detail of the bid was finished, work began on how to present it to the client. Although the written submission would be all-important, the client had asked that all bidders should make a one-hour personal presentation, and it was obvious that this would carry a lot of weight in the bid process. Rita had decided that she would lead the presentation with John in support, and after many hours of argument and re-writes, the final decision was made as to how it would be done, and the two of them rehearsed it in front of the rest of the staff to ensure that they were word perfect, with a question and answer session to ensure that they were on top of all the details that might be questioned.
As the client's premises were a hundred miles away, and the presentation was timed for eleven o'clock, Rita decided that she and John should drive there the night before and spend the night in a hotel close to their destination. On the day the weather was not good, with snow in the air. Rita normally drove a Range Rover, but this was being serviced so she borrowed a Japanese 4x4 from Jake, a colleague. They left work early, going home to change and pick up their overnight gear, then Rita drove to John's house to pick him up. He was surprised to see her wearing jeans and a big sweater, sensible in the circumstances, but the first time he had seen her out of business clothes, and it made her a bit more human, also showing off a pleasant looking arse.
By the time they left it was beginning to snow more seriously, and as they drove northwards it became quite thick. However, they made good progress on well-salted motorways till they were within about fifteen miles of their destination, when suddenly the traffic came to a halt, and soon afterwards they heard on the traffic radio that the road was closed by a major accident. By chance, they were approaching a junction, so Rita drove along the hard shoulder so that they could leave the motorway, and turned onto a two-way road that would take them to where they needed to be, but, after a few miles, this road was also blocked by an accident.
'We passed a road off to the left a few hundred yards back, I'll turn and we'll try that'
'It didn't look much of a road to me' said John 'I'm not sure you'll get far'.
'Don't be negative, man. We'll get there'.
John was very doubtful, but he decided to keep quiet. Rita turned the car around and soon turned off onto a little by-road leading into some woodland. After a couple of miles, the snow was getting deeper and John was getting concerned, especially as he wasn't over impressed by Rita's driving, after she had a couple of slides. She sensed his concern.
'It's all right John, I've got lots of experience driving 4x4s '
'Maybe, but you normally drive a Range Rover, it's a damn sight more sophisticated than this load of Jap crap. It's got clever traction control systems and so on.'
Even as he spoke, they went round a gentle bend and the vehicle slid completely out of control across the road sideways and finished up firmly against a tree, and all of Rita's efforts to drive it off were unsuccessful. She was cursing, then finally admitted defeat. The snow had stopped falling and the moon was out, showing them a view of a small house lying back from the road.
'There's a house there, I'll go and see if anyone's at home.'
Rita spoke, and was quickly out of the car and walking briskly towards the house through the snow. John's door was jammed against the tree, and he had to climb across to get out, pausing on the way to open the glove box and take out the torch that John knew that Jake kept there, from having borrowed the vehicle before. He had just got out, and was pulling on his anorak as he heard a scream from Rita. He ran towards her and found that the level snow covered an ornamental pond, and Rita had crashed through the thin ice and fallen full length into the icy water. She had struggled to her feet and was crawling out as he got there, and he gave her a hand to pull her to her feet. He led the way to the house, treading carefully to avoid any other unforeseen traps. When they got to the door of the house and knocked, it was soon clear that there was no one there, but when he turned the latch, the door opened.
He shone the torch around, and got an immediate feeling of déja vue. It was a small wooden chalet of a type that his father owned, and looked as though it came from the same set of drawings. He found a light switch and turned it on, with no effect, and he guessed rightly that it would normally be powered by a small motor generator set. However, there were a couple of liquid gas lamps, and he found some matches and lit them both, lighting the place up quite brightly. He saw that there was a big wood-burning stove, ready laid up, and he turned to Rita, who was fiddling with her mobile phone.
'I can't get a signal, my phone must have got wet' she fumed.
