From her doorway, Mel Winterbourne watched Shane, her deputy, with interest. He was waiting impatiently next to the printer, shifting from one foot to the other and grabbing each page as soon as it appeared, virtually pulling the paper from the rollers, rather than letting it drop into the output tray. Mel had worked in an office environment long enough to spot a colleague printing documents on the sly.

She’d been trying to wean herself off teasing him, but he presented too easy a target. She set off for a casual walk around the office. Focused on his task, he didn’t notice her sidle up behind him. A few inches from his ear, she said softly: ‘Printing out your CV, Shane?’

His entire body jerked with shock as he spun to face her, the blood rushing to his cheeks. He was half a head shorter than Mel, stocky, with cropped hair and a full Victorian beard.

‘No,’ he said. He grabbed the papers he’d printed so far and clutched them to his barrel chest. ‘It’s just…erm…a report.’

‘Honestly, it doesn’t bother me either way,’ she said. ‘There’s no law against applying for jobs.’

‘But I’m not app…’

She turned away, brushing off his denial, so he couldn’t see how much amusement her ambush had given her. She wished she could see him squirm, but she’d have to make to do with the mental picture.

Mel meant what she said: she wouldn’t have the slightest objection if he looked for another job. No reflection on his abilities: Shane Foxley was the perfect deputy: competent but unthreatening. Rather, the simple truth was that, if he found another job, she’d feel less guilty about her plan to shut the whole place down.

The same went for the whole team, presently hunched over mobiles or tapping quietly at keyboards. When she was their age, office life was all personal phone calls and yacking; this generation was so much more earnest and diligent. She really did wish them well, and it pained her to have to let them all go.

They would hate her for it, of course, but she’d never cared about popularity, and in the end they’d all be fine. In its twenty-year life, the Orange Peel Foundation had set a benchmark for effective single-issue campaigning, and other employers would fight over its staff. They would all get a decent severance package, too. That was the least Mel could do for them.

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