How to Get Ahead Without Murdering your Boss (7 page)

Lou knelt next to Paul and gingerly pulled aside the cap which was covering the head. The hair came off and revealed the full extent of the hoax. An eerie wax face stared back at her. "He brought a dummy with him?"

"Well the head anyway. The rest is a kind of cloth bag in the shape of a body, filled with sand so that it would fall I guess. And he dressed it in his clothes." Paul replaced the blanket and stood up.

"A pretty elaborate joke don't you think?" Lou asked, looking at the Medivalue staff standing around.

"Well I'm glad he's not here," said Kylie, "Because if he was I'd want to kill him."

Yasmin pulled free of Kylie's arms. "But… if this isn't Arnold, then where is he?" She looked frantically from one to another. "We have to find him. We have to see if he's all right."

Lou found it hard to meet Yasmin's eyes.

Ed was the only one who took pity on her. "I'm sure he's fine dear. If he was fit enough to haul that thing off a cliff last night then I'm sure he's around here somewhere, just waiting to jump out at us and shout 'Surprise.'"

"I hope he does," said Nathan. "Just give me five minutes with him and I'll…"

"You'll what?" challenged Kylie. "Give him a good talking-to?" She rolled her eyes. "Don't make threats you don't have the guts to follow through on. Arnold's playing another one of his macho boot camp games and he expects us to all fall to pieces. Well I for one, am not going to crumble." She turned to the door. "I'm going to have a hot shower and a change of clothes and then have something to eat." She looked at Lou. "I think I heard you say something about coffee and sandwiches?"

Lou quickly got to her feet. "Yes sorry, I'll arrange to have it served in the lounge now. Please excuse me, I'll have to call the police and tell them there's been a mistake." She followed Kylie out of the door. Ed ushered Yasmin out, still babbling about finding Arnold. Paul shook his head and nodded at Nathan. "After you mate."

Paul took one last look behind him as he locked and bolted the door behind them.

13

A short time later, the group reassembled in the lounge. The rescuers had all showered and changed into dry clothes and gratefully accepted the hot drinks and sandwiches. Lou had radioed the mainland and told the police the results of the morning's expedition. They seemed annoyed but busy and had kept the conversation short, promising only to "keep in touch". Lou was relieved that they had the distraction of the cyclone and hadn't asked too many questions. She checked the cyclone reports and learned that Bertha had once again changed course and was heading directly south — straight for the tiny peninsula where they sat, jutting out into the bay.

As she left the office and headed towards the lounge she heard what sounded like an argument coming from the training room. Looking around at the empty corridor she walked quietly over to the door and leaned against it. It sounded like Kylie and Nathan but she couldn't be sure and cursed her good planning at making the doors to the training rooms soundproof. "You're quite the snoop aren't you?" whispered a voice in her ear. Lou spun around and clasped her heart. Paul stood there grinning. "You scared the, the crap out of me."

"Couldn't resist," began Paul before Lou grabbed him and put her finger to his lips. "Shhh," Lou whispered and leaned back towards the door. "Listen." With mock seriousness Paul leaned with her, enjoying the excuse for their faces to be so close. "You know, you really have beautiful lips," whispered Paul.

Lou frowned and shook her head. "They're talking about Arnold. Maybe they know more than they're telling."

"Well why don't we ask them?" and with that Paul opened the door and entered the room.

Kylie and Nathan were bent over the laptop as they argued, but both snapped upright when Paul and Lou strode into the room.

"You okay?" asked Paul. "Only we could hear arguing and..."

"We're fine," said Kylie quickly closing the laptop's lid. "We just wanted to get some news about the cyclone."

"Well I was just coming back to tell you what I'd learned," said Lou. "Is the computer working?"

"No the internet seems to be down. No signal."

Nathan took a step forward in front of the desk. "I wanted to send an email to my wife. She's pregnant. It's our first and, well I just wanted to let her know that I was okay."

Lou almost felt sorry for him, he seemed so sincere. "I could try to get a message to Cairns and get someone to ring her if you like."

"Could you? Thanks. That would be great."

"Sure, come to the office now and we'll see what we can do." Lou led him out of the door and towards the office, looking pointedly at Paul on the way.

Kylie remained where she was. Paul stood near the door and waved his arm gallantly towards the doorway.

She hesitated and then with one last look at the laptop walked out of the door.

Paul followed her back to the door of the lounge. "I'll join you in a minute," he said as he closed the door behind her and then scooted back to the training room. He opened up the laptop but Kylie had been too quick and shut it down. Paul smiled wryly as he headed back to the lounge. Either they've got something to hide or Lou's paranoia was contagious.

Lou hung up the handset and turned back to Nathan who was standing near the window looking out at the storm. He seemed to be lost in thought for a few seconds then remembered Lou was there. "Thanks for that."

"No problem." Lou decided to press him a little. "It must be tough for your wife with you working crazy hours and being such a high stress job."

"Yes. Something Arnold never seems to understand. Just because he cheats on his wife and never spent any time with his kids growing up he thinks everyone should live their lives the same way. Nathan sighed and sank into a chair opposite Lou. I used to be like him, or think that I wanted to be like him — powerful, rich. But with the baby coming, I don't know." Nathan looked down at his hands. "My priorities are shifting. I want to be able to come home in time to have dinner with my family and to actually see my kids grow up. That's what Arnold and I were fighting about all the time. He wanted me to succeed him, which would mean working twelve hour days, six days a week. And I told him that wasn't me. I'm committed to the company but…," Nathan threw his hands up in the air.

"He's not into staff having a work/life balance?" Lou leaned against the windowsill.

"Hasn't heard of the concept." Nathan shook his head.

"So how did you feel about coming away for the weekend?"

"I told Arnold that we didn't need to spend thousands of dollars coming away to some corporate retreat to analyze business plans when we could have done that just as successfully back at the office — and maybe given everyone a cash bonus as a reward instead."

"But he wanted to come."

"Yes. He had a bee in his bonnet about something. He wanted to do team-building exercises and pretend he was Crocodile Dundee. We know what he was planning now I guess.

We've all been working very hard over the last year developing the launch and marketing for a prototype for a new technology, a healing agent dispensed through a bandage. Trials show positive results and after we went public, our shares soared. We're about to sign a lucrative deal with a firm in China and so Arnold wanted to take everyone away. In my opinion, he just wanted a bit of time away from his wife, if you know what I mean."

Nathan looked at Lou. She smiled grimly. "Yes I picked up on that. They are … separated?"

"No way. The money to set up the company came from her you see. Family money. From what I can tell she keeps a pretty tight rein on him — and the business. Difficult to tell what she cares about more. I spoke to her in the lift at the office just a few days ago and she seemed very excited by this Chinese deal." Nathan sighed and looked down at his hands again. "But now I'm not sure how stable Arnold is. If the board finds out about this, well they might expect me to step into Arnold's shoes and I don't know if I want to. In fact," said Nathan, shifting back in his seat and looking Lou in the eye, "I know I don't want to." It was the first time she had seen him smile.

"Well it looks like Medivalue will have to find itself another 2IC," said Lou.

Nathan's smile widened. "Yes it will."

14

Paul stopped his story and glanced over at David, who had been twisting his hands around his bottle for the last few minutes, deep in thought. "Does this Nathan guy remind you of anyone?"

David looked up. "Yes, a bit…" He sighed. "No, a lot. He sounds a lot like me, except he has the wife, family, the things that are important." David leaned forward. "But I know what he means about the pressure. I used to think that the money was the most important thing. I really busted a gut to get my first job in this company. I wanted it all — the money, the big house, the flashy car.

"And then you get on the financial roundabout. You take out a huge mortgage, which means that you need to get that next promotion and you buy the big screen TV and the sound system, and soon your credit card debt looks like it could feed a Third World nation and the pressure to get the next job and the next is, well, it's insane."

David rubbed his eyes. "And the irony of it is that you are becoming less and less content the more you fight to get to the top."

Paul considered his new friend. David was speaking a foreign language as far as he was concerned, but he could see how unhappy he was. "Well mate, it sounds like you are ready for an F."

David looked at him.

"F for FINANCIAL OBJECTIVES," Paul explained. "You need to sit down and work out just how much money you need to have in order to be happy with what you've got. Some people might need a million bucks to be happy and are willing to make the sacrifices needed to get it. Others, like our friend Nathan, are deciding that maybe they can get by on less in order to achieve more in other areas of their lives."

Paul managed to let the silence hang between them for a few minutes. He could see that David was going through an internal struggle. The to-ing and fro-ing of his thoughts was almost palpable. Finally David looked up and smiled. "Okay, I think I have a bit more thinking to do on that one, but I want to hear the rest of the story so I'll put F aside for a bit."

Summary

Financial objectives

Careers and financial needs go hand in hand:

• Do you have a financial plan consistent with your career goals?
  
• Do you have a trusted advisor who can assist you plan your financial future?
  
• When was the last time you carried out an in-depth analysis of your financial position?
  
• Have you set a realistic financial budget, taking into account your partner's and family needs?
  

15

Saturday afternoon passed slowly. The guests amused themselves in the lounge playing cards, reading and drinking. Lou and Paul did several circuits of the buildings ensuring that all the shutters were closed and doors fastened. The wind still clawed at the buildings but it didn't seem to be getting any worse and Lou hoped that the cyclone might bypass them.

"Thanks again Paul," said Lou as they entered the foyer and made their way to her office.

"Anytime. What else would I be doing on a Saturday afternoon except watching the footie with my mates and then having a celebratory drink or two at the local?" Paul paused at the door of her office.

"Shhh!" Lou placed a hand on his mouth. "There's someone in the office." She slowly turned the handle and started to open the door but unfortunately it creaked and a figure standing near the two-way radio spun around.

"Yasmin?" Lou walked into the office. "What are you doing?"

Yasmin looked as if she was going to try and argue her way through being caught but then dissolved into tears and sat down in a chair.

"I'm sorry. I was, I just wanted to get the police or someone to look for Arnold. I know something's happened to him and no one else here seems to care."

Lou was getting tired of Yasmin's tears but she tried to be patient.

"You obviously do care," said Lou offering her a box of tissues. "Why do you think Arnold is in trouble rather than just out hiding somewhere playing a joke?"

Yasmin paused, looking at Lou and Paul. "Well I don't think he threw that dummy off the cliff. He couldn't have. He's afraid of heights."

Puzzled, Lou probed a little further. "You mentioned that this morning but I don't understand. How do you know?"

"Well as someone's assistant you get to know them very well and, after my husband died, Arnold was very good to me and my son Tom. He was very understanding if I needed time off. There are a million things that go wrong when you are a single parent."

"Yes of course," said Lou in a gentle voice.

Yasmin turned to her. "He took Tom and me indoor rock-climbing one day because Tom's crazy about it. But Arnold wouldn't go up, he just stood at the bottom. He told me later he's afraid of heights."

"Sounds like you did know him very well," Lou and Paul exchanged a look over her head.

"When did you see him last?" Lou tried to appear concerned, not curious.

"What? Oh, just after midnight, we all split up and went to our cabins.

"And that was the last time you saw him?"

"Yes." Yasmin suddenly sat upright. What are you suggesting?"

Paul sat on the edge of the desk in front of her. "So was that before or after I spoke to you at Arnold's cabin?"

"Oh, I, well, yes I mean that's the last time I saw him." Yasmin looked down briefly but then she stuck out her chin and met Paul's eyes. "I left straight after you. Arnold wanted to sleep." Her voice was firm. Paul wasn't going to get any more out of her. He opened his mouth to speak but Lou shook her head at him.