Chapter 1: Induction

Derek Pullman always knew exactly when and where he first meet Helen Adams; it was at half past eleven on the morning of Tuesday, 1st August, 2028 in the main lecture theatre at the head office of Thomas Hunt Management Associates on the Embankment in London. They were both working their way through what each hoped would be the first day of paid employment either had ever had. They met on the induction course for new Graduate Trainees, and the organisers of this intensive two week session of information and evaluation had paired them to work together for the initial exercise.

The forty trainees on the course were painfully aware that they only had conditional job offers and that twenty of them would not be hired at the end of the fortnight. Worse than that, they did not know the criteria by which the selection would be made. As if this were not enough, they had been arbitrarily teamed up in pairs, and told that they had to work together. This gave Derek considerable food for thought. He was paired with a pretty girl who had shoulder length dark brown hair and a pale English rose complexion. She seemed very timid and Derek wondered whether her looks would work against him, by distracting the bosses' attention from him, or work in his favour by the same token.

The day wore on and the lectures were extremely boring. Ethics, when everyone knew that the only ethical standard accountancy and consulting firms had was getting more contracts. Lunch was a stand up buffet, with only a minimal break to eat and drink. Security was the first session after lunch, and everyone knew that if it came to the pinch security would go by the board if profits were threatened.

The history of THMA, as all the lecturers called it, was the first presentation to catch Derek's attention. This was not because of the content, so much as the fact that it was given by Bob Hunt, the son of the founder, Thomas Hunt. Derek and Helen were both familiar with the outline of the story. How a one-man consultancy had grown, through hard work and good luck to the point where it acquired several other, smaller companies, and finally swallowed a moribund audit company to become a serious player in European consultancy. Thomas had shrewdly turned it from a limited company into a partnership and it had never looked back. Not even his death some years earlier had slowed its growth. Now it was one of the Big Three.

At the end of the afternoon session, the first shock was applied. The would be employees were told that each pair was to prepare a presentation that evening, and the following morning "sharp at eight o'clock" one, and only one, of each pair had to give a presentation on the reasons why the other one wanted to join THMA.

In the hotel where all forty of them were staying there was much midnight oil expended, and many arguments ensued. The candidates debated what would seem acceptable reasons to their inquisitors, what would be the best way to present those reasons, and which of each pair should do the presentation. In most cases this last was the most keenly fought, with each actually wanting to make the presentation. In the case of Derek and Helen there was little argument about that; Derek simply insisted that Helen should give it and was very forthright about his preference.

"All you have to do to impress them is to wear your skirt as short as you dare and to leave one of your blouse buttons undone," he told her, "Then they will give you better marks than they would give me."

It took them three hours, in the privacy of Derek's hotel room, to agree on the set of reasons they would give, and it was past midnight when they started the rehearsal. Derek was not happy with the first few attempts, but finally they were agreed, and he said that they should run through it one more time, and that this should be a dress rehearsal.

"What do you mean, dress rehearsal?" Helen asked, meekly.

"I mean you should dress as you will tomorrow. I don't expect you to put on clean clothes, but adjust what you are wearing now to show more leg, and undo a button."