Falling Read Online Free Page A

count.
Too many? I don’t think so. The last lot came up when I chucked up in the
office. They won’t count. I’ll make it four. Four aspirin washed down with the
dregs from a warm can of Coke. Foul!
    God how did I get this bad and
more importantly, much more importantly, what was I doing snogging Karen Lewis.
    Man, but that will seriously come
home to haunt me. What on earth was I thinking? Karen Lewis? Our HR Director.
Of all the people to snog! What possessed me? I don’t even fancy her. At least
I don’t think I do.
    Something to do with a thong. That
was it. She bet me that I couldn’t squeeze into her thong without it snapping.
Why would I do that? What kind of crazy bet is that? She is built like a stick
insect. I have a waist that would do Moby Dick proud.
    Did I really do it? God I’m
struggling. Tell me I didn’t? Please. Shit. I think I did. I’m sure it all
happened in my office. Sometime late last night. At the office party.
    She had her thong off in seconds
and next thing I’m down to my y-fronts. Correction down to my bare BOLLOCKS!!!
Down to my bare bollocks and trying to pull on a strip of dental floss. Then
she came on to me. We snogged and…
    …and I can’t remember. But it
sure doesn’t feel like it stopped there. I woke up this morning, admittedly
alone in my own bed, an empty feeling downstairs. I suspect that our snog was a
bit more than a kiss. I can’t cope. Not while I have a hangover of this scale.
And then there was the camera. My camera. Her taking a picture of me trying on
her thong just before things went black. The camera that I have just driven
through hell to come in and get. The camera that now has no memory card in it.
And that is down in the dirt bad news. I have no idea what is on that card. I
doubt it will be good for my future.
    I’ve known Karen for twenty plus
years and she is a bitch of the first order. She needs to be in our business.
Too many secrets. Too many opportunities for slip ups. When I want someone out
of our business I want it now. No questions. When I want some gen on an
employee it is Karen’s job to dig up the crap.
    She has two files on every
employee. File A - the proper HR file. Reviews, personal details - the usual;
and then there is File B or the X Files as I call them. The dirt on each
employee. Their indiscretions - and they all have indiscretions. Who they are
sleeping with, their drug habits, their other habits, their financial troubles
and it doesn’t stop there.
    We’ve got knowledge on their
families, their friends and some cases their friends’ friends. We’ve used
private detective agencies, local criminals, bribed people, threatened people -
if you can name it we can probably own up to it. All to fill the X Files. For
the X Files are my insurance. Do your job and you get a gold star in File A.
Cause trouble and we dig out your X File.
    Well you need to in our job. One
loose mouth, one crying baby, one bleeding heart and we could be history.
Fifteen years to life history if you get my drift. So there’s no room to dick
around.
    Karen is my right hand woman,
Robin my right hand man and I may have just had intercourse with the devil
herself. I need to get out of here. Deal with this later.
    I head for my car. It is parked
down in the building’s basement car park.
    Concentrate. Engine on. Select
drive. Crap. Select reverse. Pull it together. I suspect I’m going to chuck up
again. If I do it will be an expensive vomit - this thing costs two hundred
quid a pop to valet. Exit barrier. Ramp. Back lane and here comes last night’s
remains. Out the car, engine still running and my digestive system goes into
reverse.
    How bad must I look? Lying in the
gutter of some back alley trying to throw up the lining of my stomach? If
anyone sees me I can kiss my hard man image goodnight. What in the hell was I
drinking last night?
    I remember the wine - a nice
bottle or two of Cote Rotie la Mouline 2004 Guigal, one fifty a pop. Then onto
a bottle of