The Promotion: A psychological thriller with a killer twist

by Daniel Hurst

‘I appreciate all your hard work over the last few days while you have been in the role of acting GM, and I don’t want you to think that this wasn’t a difficult decision because it was, but I have decided to go with Samantha on this one, and that decision has the full backing of the board.’

  I look at my female colleague, but she is perhaps wisely avoiding making eye contact with me now, instead gazing out at the spectacular view over Alastair’s shoulder and no doubt feeling a little sheepish about this whole thing. And so she should. She will have known just as well as anyone in the UK office that I was the next in line to be the manager. So why is it her? How the hell has she pipped me to this job?

  ‘Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but could I have a word with you in private?’ I ask Alastair, not sure how that could come across as anything but rude to the woman next to me.

  ‘Certainly. Samantha, you wouldn’t mind, would you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She gets up from her seat and picks up her handbag before smiling at me and her powerful boss before making her way over to the door with a definite spring in her step.

  ‘And don’t forget. Seven pm this evening at the Ivory,’ Alastair tells her just before she goes, and she nods her confirmation before stepping outside and closing the door behind her.

  ‘What’s the Ivory?’ I ask, genuinely curious.

  ‘Only the finest restaurant in this city,’ Alastair tells me with a satisfied grin on his face. ‘It’s very pricey, but it’s more than worth it, especially when I can put it all on the expense account.’

  Alastair gives me a wink before noticing I have gulped down most of my water since I came in here.

  ‘Can I get you another water? We have plenty more where that came from,’ he says, making a bad joke, but I don’t laugh. This is not the time for jokes.

  ‘I’m sorry, but please can you explain to me how Samantha has got the GM position over me?’

  I expect Alastair to perhaps look a little nervous when I raise the question or at least wipe that smile off his face. But he doesn’t, and that tells me he was obviously expecting it.

  ‘Of course. Like I said, it wasn’t an easy decision to come to, but it has the backing of the board, and I think Samantha will do a terrific job, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s not about whether she will do a good job or not. It’s about the fact that I was the next in line for that job. I’ve been at the company longer than her. I’ve been working under Michael for years. I’ve earned it.’

  ‘Your commitment to this company is not in question, but I wouldn’t say you have earned it,’ Alastair tells me, and his expression suddenly turns into something much more sinister.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say an employee who stole money from her employer in the past would ever deserve to become the manager, would you?’

  And there it is. The secret I thought had died with Michael. The indiscretion in my past. It seems my old boss wasn’t the only one who knew about it. Alastair obviously knows about it too.

  And it seems like just like my old boss, he is going to use it against me as well.

  37

  ‘How do you know about that?’ I ask after I put my glass of water down for fear of dropping it now that my hands are starting to shake.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think Michael was the only person who knew about what you did?’

  ‘I don’t know, I…’

  ‘That’s right, Imogen. You don’t know. That’s your problem. But I’m more than willing to bring you up to speed if you would like me to.’

  Alastair gets up from his huge office chair and stands in front of the enormous window looking out over the spectacular skyline before him.

  ‘You see, when Michael found out about your wrongdoing, he tried to do you a favour and keep you out of trouble,’ Alastair says with his back to me and his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘But what neither of you realised was that I found out about it too when I was doing an audit of the accounts, and I have to say, I was not impressed.’

  ‘It was a long time ago. I’ve changed since then, and I’ve never done anything like that again.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Alastair says, taking one of his hands out of his pocket to wipe a smudge away on his window. It’s almost as if this conversation isn’t a big deal for him like it is for me.

  ‘So why are you punishing me now?’ I demand to know, not seeing how any of this makes sense. ‘And why didn’t you do anything about it two years ago? Why string me along all this time?’

  ‘Because it’s been fun, hasn’t it?’

  Alastair suddenly turns around to look at me, and now I no longer see a confident, charismatic leader. I see pure venom, just like I used to see when I looked at Michael’s face.

  ‘No, this can’t be happening,’ I say, getting up from my chair and backing away from the man at the window as if he is about to pounce at me, which maybe he is.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asks me as his eyes follow me across the room.

  ‘You and Michael?’

  ‘What about me and Michael?’

  ‘You’ve been working together.’

  ‘Well, yes, we are colleagues. Or at least we were, anyway.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean!’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me what you mean.’

  I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s not easy because a lot has happened in the last couple of minutes. I’ve gone from thinking I was being promoted to the shock of finding out Samantha had got the job instead, but now that’s not even the worst of it. The worst part is that Alastair knew about me taking the money two years ago, and now that makes me think that he knew what Michael had been doing to me ever since.

  ‘Did you tell Michael to treat me like that?’ I ask, dreading the answer but needing to know.

  ‘Treat you like what?’ Alastair replies, and it’s obvious he isn’t going to give me anything unless I work for it.

  ‘Like crap!’ I cry, my voice cracking as the words escape my throat. ‘He treated me like crap! He made my life a misery! Did you know about it?’

  ‘No, not really. Well, I had some idea. What kind of boss would I be if I didn’t? But I didn’t tell him to bear a grudge against you, if that’s what you mean. I think you managed that one pretty well all by yourself. You see, my feelings about you are entirely separate to whatever problem Michael had with you.’

  There it is. The confirmation that Michael was not the only one who had it in for me. Alastair does too. I can’t believe this.

  ‘If you found out what I did, then why not just fire me at the time?’

  ‘Because I decided that it would be far better to control you than to just get rid of you. And make no mistake, I have been controlling you for quite some time now. Like that pay rise falling through at the last minute? Who do you think cancelled that?’ ’

  I feel like I can’t breathe, and it has nothing to do with the high altitude we are currently at.

  ‘Are you okay there?’ Alastair asks me as I rush over to the table where the jug of water sits and quickly pour myself another glass.

  I gulp down the room-temperature liquid, but it barely makes any difference to my dry throat, and it’s not dehydration that is my problem now.

  It’s anxiety.

  ‘Why do you hate me?’ I ask. ‘Because it can’t just be because of the money I took two years ago. That can’t just be it.’

  ‘Oh, Imogen. Hate is a very strong word. I wouldn’t say I hate you.’

  ‘Then why are you treating me this way?’

  ‘Because I can,’ Alastair replies, and there is a coldness to the way the words come out of his mouth that sends a shiver down my spine.

  ‘Why did you make me come here if you weren’t going to give me the promotion?’

  ‘Why do you think? To screw with you, of course.’

  ‘What about Helen? Was that you? Did you tell Michael to fire her?’

&
nbsp; ‘No, he came up with that one himself, but I was happy enough to sign off on it. Collateral damage, I’m afraid.’

  I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it, and the glass is already out of my hand and flying towards Alastair before I can stop myself.

  He ducks out of the way of it at the last second, and it shatters loudly on the windowpane behind him, leaving both of us temporarily stunned by what just happened.

  ‘I think this meeting is over,’ he tells me when he has composed himself and taken a seat back behind his desk. But he looks so smug there with his stupid shirt and his stupid tie and, most of all, his stupid grin. I want to wipe it off his face, just like I wanted to wipe the smile off Michael’s. But if it was hard enough to do it to my old boss, how the hell am I going to do it to Alastair? This man is ten times more powerful than my old boss.

  ‘I’m resigning,’ I say, making up my mind there and then to bring a stop to this sorry state of affairs before it can go on any longer. ‘Accept this as my notice.’

  I turn for the door, but I’ve barely taken a step towards it when Alastair starts chuckling.

  ‘You can’t resign. Imogen,’ he says, stopping me in my tracks with how sure of that he sounds. ‘Just like you couldn’t resign when Michael was alive. I have exactly the same evidence he had on you, and I will do exactly the same thing with it as he would have done should you give me reason to.’

  ‘I don’t care anymore,’ I confess, and I think I actually mean it. ‘I can’t carry on like this.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice. Think about your husband. Think about your father. Think about your career. And think about how you will miss all of those things when you’re in prison for theft. And not just that. I also know about what you tried to do with Michael recently. The hidden camera in his office so you could obtain his password. Very naughty. It’s enough to make me wonder if you had anything to do with what happened to him. I’m sure the police would be interested in knowing you had been planting cameras in the office of a man who turned up dead a short time later.’

  I really wish I had another glass in my hand because I could definitely throw another one at him now. But I don’t, so all I can do is stand and look at him helplessly from across his office.

  He is already typing away on his laptop keyboard as if I’m not any kind of distraction for him right now. Beside him on the desk is a photo, and it looks like Alastair in his younger days, wearing a shirt and tie and giving a thumbs-up to the camera as he sits at his desk.

  Alastair glances up and notices me looking at the photo, and he seems happy to fill me in about its origin.

  ‘That picture was taken on my first day with this bank,’ he says. ‘I was twenty-one years old, wet behind the ears and eager to learn and earn. I’ve come a long way since then, wouldn’t you say?’

  I don’t feel like saying anything to him, so I don’t bother.

  ‘I keep this photo on my desk to remind myself of where I have come from and what I had to go through to get here. I look at it every day before I start work, and I look at it every night before I go home. It means a lot to me, this photo, because it reminds me of who I really am.’

  I’ve had enough of listening to him giving me his life story, so I interject right there.

  ‘You’re right. I can’t leave. I have too much to lose. But please, just tell me why you are doing this to me. Why must I be punished forever for one mistake that didn’t affect you or Michael at the time?’

  Alastair ponders my question for a moment, and I start to get my hopes up that I am about to be given an honest answer. But then that doesn’t happen. Instead, I get another troubling statement to keep me company on my plane ride all the way back to the UK.

  ‘Don’t worry yourself about that, Imogen,’ Alastair replies as he leans back in his chair and interlinks his fingers over his stomach. ‘Just worry about me – if you thought Michael was bad, wait until I’ve finished with you.’

  38

  I look around the plane cabin as we soar through the air at 38,000 feet above the Atlantic, and compare this journey to the one I made yesterday. Unlike that trip, there are no complimentary drinks, nor do I have a selection of over a hundred movies or the undivided attention of my own personal flight attendant. Instead, I am in economy class, where the champagne is flatter and not free, and the only film to watch for entertainment is the same film that the dozens of other people cramped in around me are watching too.

  I’m not a snob, and I certainly don’t feel like I am above this level of travel anymore, but there’s no denying that it is quite the comedown from the last time I flew. Alastair changed my booking for my flight back to the UK, removing the perks of first class now that he has shown his hand and revealed himself to be just as big an enemy as Michael was, if not bigger.

  There’s a slight incidence of turbulence a few seconds later, and the cabin shudders a little before settling back down again, but that’s not the reason for the sinking feeling in my stomach. That is purely down to the fact that my time in New York was a disaster, and I’m still reeling from finding out that my life is still just as screwed up as it was before I made the trip.

  Instead of being given the promotion I deserved and expected, I was told in no uncertain terms that Michael’s death does not mean the end of my suffering. For reasons I am still not clear on, Alastair hates me apparently even more than Michael did. Even with Michael gone, I’m not in any better position than I was before. It would have been a big enough shock just finding out that Samantha had taken the job I had expected to be given, but that was nothing compared to finding out that the CEO, who I once thought was a pleasant and polite man, is actually my biggest enemy of all.

  Now what can I do? Just like Michael, he has the evidence about my wrongdoing two years ago, and as long as that is the case, it seems there is very little. I’m hardly going to try to bump off another one of my bosses. I didn’t even want to do it the first time, but now that I have and got away with it, I don’t think I’m going to push my ‘luck’ and try to bring down Alastair either.

  If there is one thing that I should be grateful for, then it’s that Alastair has no concrete evidence of what might have happened between Michael and me in his last few moments. But as I sit in the dark, cramped cabin, looking around at my fellow passengers watching the same film on their tiny screens, I wonder if it may actually end up being to my benefit if Alastair did know that I removed Michael from my path. If he knew for certain that I was capable of such dangerous and deadly things, then I wonder if he would actually reconsider his scheme and stop trying to make my life a living hell. It’s possible, but it’s also very risky. What happened with Michael could be so destructive to my life if it came out that it surely outweighs any possible benefit I could hope to gain by bringing it to light.

  I reach down for the plastic cup on my tray table for another drink of my overpriced wine, but it’s empty, and I don’t feel like forking out for another one. Nor do I fancy my chances of getting any kind of speedy service here in this part of the plane because since take-off, the cabin crew has seemed very reluctant to offer anything even remotely resembling good service. There is a clear pecking order on commercial flights like this, and after having a taste of being at the top, I am back at the bottom again and all because of yet another man with a vendetta against me.

  Checking my watch, I see that there are still five hours left on this flight. That’s five hours to get backache in this uncomfortable seat, five hours to try to get the attention of one of the unhelpful cabin crew, and more importantly, five hours to come up with a story for what I am going to tell Evan about my trip. We spoke briefly on the phone last night after my ill-fated meeting with Alastair as well as just before my flight home took off today, but I am yet to tell him that I have been unsuccessful in my goal of being promoted to the UK manager position. I couldn’t bring myself to let down Evan when I myself was already feeling so deflated, so I just told him that the meeting had been about s
omething else and that decisions were still being made about who would succeed Michael. But there’s no way I’ll be able to stall for much longer because he will know something is wrong when time goes by and I’m still working in my same role without any added responsibility, prestige, or income.

  I can’t believe this has happened again. Talk about déjà vu. From one bastard of a boss to another and all because of one stupid thing I did. It’s that mistake that I find myself dwelling on in the dark cabin as the plane hurtles on through the night sky. How can it be that something like that has motivated Alastair to want to punish me forever? It’s not as if he would have suffered any personal hardship as a result of my actions.

  So why has he taken it so personally?

  I’m racking my brains as I peer through the cabin window and see the bright white light flashing on the plane’s wing that provides a visual cue for any other planes flying in the area. I guess it’s the backup system if the radar fails and two planes get too close to each other in the sky. They can see the light and avert course to avoid potential disaster. But as I stare at that blinking light, I feel like I am already on a collision course, one with the man I have just been to see. For a reason I am not yet clear on, Alastair hates me with such a passion that it can’t just be about what I did illegally and immorally two years ago. There has to be more to it, and if I am to stand any chance of escaping this mess, then I need to find out what it is.

  But where do I start? He’s in New York, and I’m on my way back to the UK, so it’s not as if I can learn anything by being around him. I did try asking him, but he didn’t tell me, just like Michael used to take pleasure in not telling me all the facts either, so that isn’t an avenue that can lead anywhere productive. I definitely don’t want to go down the route of trying to hack Alastair’s system and plant false evidence or find weaknesses in his personal life, like I did with Michael, because that ended so badly last time. So with all that in mind, it seems like there is very little I can do.