Meet Charlie Mandrake. Fifty-three years old. Account manager. Married to Margaret Mandrake. Semi in Croyden. No children. Twenty-five years with Fish and McMahon Accountancy and not a single promotion to his name.

He snoozes peacefully at his desk, his head propped against the nylon fabric of his cubicle wall. The office hums with the anxious sounds of tax evaluation, but from the safety of his prefab home, Charlie dreams of the countryside. The chattering of computer keyboards fills his dreams with the sound of summer showers. The hiss of the air conditioner makes him dream of an alpine breeze. And even the rhythmic tick-tick of his lower vertebrae fusing together only leads his dream-self to the shore of an expansive frozen lake, thawing in the winter sun.

Charlie never expected much from life. He was one of those men who drifted into accountancy in the absence of anything else that truly inspired him.

He pulled the corporate duvet of anonymity around him and settled happily into a humdrum life of morning commutes, afternoon snoozes, and thirty-five hour weeks.

If, sometimes, he feels trapped in his carpeted box, surrounded by the ambitious young people that come and go with all the regularity and fading optimism of mayflies, then it's a fleeting thought. He has only to think of his old colleagues from the accountancy apprenticeship-raw, broken men condemned to eighty-hour weeks, high cholesterol, and peptic ulcers-to be filled with a renewed sense of well-being. Perhaps sometimes his life with Margaret, and her Napoleonic efforts to climb the Amway pyramid, seems a little empty. But they expect little of each other, and they rub along well enough.

Yes, Charlie is a contented man. The only thing that threatens to disturb his otherwise unblemished dreams is the Maxwell account. The three-foot high mound of tax returns that broods on the floor next to his feet.

It arrived on his desk just over six months ago and has grown steadily ever since. Everyday, new papers arrive, and Charlie dutifully adds them, unread, to the pile. It's a truly hideous affair. A tax return so tortuous, a company profile so convoluted, and a set of accounts so intentionally opaque that they practically have the words TAX EVASION printed in large red letters at the top of every page.

But even this is no more than a minor annoyance for Charlie. He has only to wait until September, and the new intake, and then he'll be able to drop the whole thing onto the desk of the first particularly enthusiastic young mayfly he finds.

* * *

Meet Miranda Dickinson. Thirty-eight years old. Department head. Unmarried. Miranda looks a bit like Charlie's great aunt Bunny. She has the same rounded belly that presses against the waistband of her skirt like a shiny beetle's abdomen. She has exactly the same wild eyes and unexpectedly sensual mouth. But Miranda is an entirely different creature. She's the heartless of the machine. She drives a Porsche and owns a penthouse in Richmond. Inside, she's granite wrapped in reinforced concrete. And now, she's about to ruin Charlie's day.

"Charles, how are we?" she says, leaning over the wall of Charlie's cubicle.

Charlie smiles as broadly as he can manage and nods a little too eagerly.

"Oh, fine, fine . . . Everything's moving along nicely."

"Go-od." Miranda stretches out the word so far that Charlie is afraid he might snap beneath the strain. "About the Maxwell account . . . You did get my memo didn't you?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Broad smile. Broad smile.

"So you know all about that business, then?"

"Yes, yes, all about it."

"That their CEO just happens to hold an exec position on our board?"

Charlie's smile holds, but his throat clamps shut.

"And you do understand that it would be very bad all round if we didn't straighten out this little mess with their accounts, don't you?"

"Of course. Very bad."

"Very. Bad. Indeed."

Miranda leans forward to impress the point.

"Good!" Miranda says brightly, leaning back. "So long as we understand each other. Drop a progress summary on my desk first thing tomorrow, will you? I'm having brunch with Jeremy, and I'd like to reassure him that everything is in order."

"Yes, of course. No problem."

Miranda leaves, and Charlie lets his head fall heavily into his hands. A cold, shaky, sick feeling spreads through his stomach.
This might really be it, he thinks. The career killer. The missed memo, a bit of bad luck, and a spot of professional negligence.

That's all it takes. How unfair that their CEO should be on the board. If he wasn't, then Miranda wouldn't be brown-nosing and chasing the account. He could have happily waited for the new intake in September, and nobody would have noticed. But no, that wasn't an option anymore. Miranda would be made to look bad, and when Miranda was made to look bad, people got stung. Yes, this was very bad. Very. Bad. Indeed.

* * *

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