"What can they want me for?" Puzzled David Miles looked at the letter again. The embossed heading stated that it came from McPherson Associates, a big stockbroking and insurance firm in town employing several hundred people. After a little preamble, the letter said, "I have a proposition I wish to put to you and would be pleased if you could arrange an appointment…" It was signed Graham McPherson, Managing Director. David read it again, "It says, 'I have a proposition.' not we have a proposition so it seems to come from him personally. He's signed it; it isn't a pp signature from his secretary. What can he want? I have no interest in the brokering or even the insurance business, none at all."



"My word you are a bean-pole and no mistake," the young receptionist remarked as David shambled to her desk in the foyer of the plush office block of McPherson Associates, "You must be seven feet tall." Her smile nullified any offence the remark might have caused. "Another student looking for a summer job, I suppose," she thought but said nothing.

"Not quite. Six foot eleven." David straightened himself to his full height.

"Wow! I'm five ten but I have to look up to you. And you're so slim with it."

"Yeah, tell me about it," laughed David, "And I wear a larger size hat than most people, when I wear a hat at all."

"Sorry, I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I hope you're not offended," the girl apologised. "What can I do for you? Looking for a summer job?" By his untidy, shabby clothes, she'd correctly labelled him as a student but had wrongly guessed his reasons for being there.

"No miss, I came to see Mr. McPherson."

"You'll need an appointment to see him. He's the boss and normally only the more important clients get to visit him…"

"I have an appointment. He asked me to see him and I phoned yesterday. Talked to his secretary, Tracy." David cut into the spiel the girl had used many times.

The receptionist looked up in surprise. "Perhaps he is more than a student. Perhaps if he really has an appointment with the boss, he will report me and get me sacked. Better be nice to him." Out loud she went on, "I'm sorry sir, I shouldn't have assumed…Your name sir, please."

"That's okay Lisa, I'm David Miles," David read the name on her badge, "And I don't know why I'm here either. It's not the sort of place I would want to work in."

Lisa became a little more concerned when she phoned through to Mr. McPherson's personal assistant and was told to escort him to her immediately. "This way please sir," she said after putting the phone down. She again worried that she'd committed a faux pas. She was never told to escort any but the most important clients. The boy seemed unaware of the privilege and she gave a little smile when he automatically ducked on entering the lift although the door was probably high enough even for him. Moments later he was sitting in a plush chair in front of the boss's desk.

"David," Graham McPherson started after the usual introductions, "I wish to offer you a special position for your summer vacation…"

"I don't need a job, sir. I have other work I wish to do. Father left me well provided for and I am continuing some of the research he started and will use that for my Open University degree thesis. I'm having to do that through the OU because I'm too young to go to a main university."

"I know about that David and you'll largely be able to continue with you own work as well. They say you are going to be another genius like your father. It was a sad loss when he was drowned." Graham paused and then asked, "Do you know my daughter, Kathleen McPherson?"

The question took David by surprise. "Yes sir, she's in my form but I don't see much of her. Normally I would have similar classes to her but I did all the exam work they're doing two years ago and now I spend most of my school time with the upper sixth or doing the OU work."

"You don't know her socially?"

"Sir, I don't know where this is leading. I hardly know your daughter. I'm not into girls. My size makes that awkward and girls shy away from me, and me from them for that matter. She is in a different social class to me all together. We've hardly spoken since junior school." David was more worried now. Was he being accused of having a relationship with Kathy? If so what was the 'position' they wanted to offer him?"



Kathy was still pissed off with her father. It had been two weeks since his ultimatum and not once had she been allowed out on her own. Each night a car collected her from school and brought her home where an elderly woman supervised her and was under strict orders from her father to ensure she behaved. Of course Kathy kicked against the regime whenever she could and stubbornly refused to do any schoolwork and indeed for the final two exams she didn't even put a name on her paper. Twice she'd managed to escape but each time, the security firm Graham McPherson employed to watch her, brought her home. Each time she'd been locked in a small, almost bare guestroom without TV, radio or her music centre. Only her school books. Now the exams were officially over she should have been free for the summer but her father still refused to release her. She cajoled, she pleaded, and she swore, all to no avail. Having no money of her own didn't help either. For the first two days, she threw the 2 back at her father and went without lunch except what she scrounged from her friends but after two weeks, these friends had drifted away and her bad moods and temper, brought on by her frustration, didn't encourage them to stay.

"We have a guest for dinner tonight Kathleen. Dress nicely but casually, its not a formal affair," her father informed her.

"Sod off! Look after your own fucking guests!"

"Do it or I will send the two J's to bring you down, however you are dressed."

The two J's were Jake and John the men who watched over her. She knew they would do whatever they were told and her efforts to seduce them had so far been unsuccessful. In protest she wore her jeans with the knees worn through, a check shirt knotted around her waist and her hair held in a ponytail with elastic bands. "I'm not going to bother with make-up either, then he can see just how badly I'm treated," she told her reflection in the mirror. "Sod him. Perhaps we'll have some wine tonight and I can sneak an extra glass or two."

A knock at the bedroom door and the voice of the maid announced, "Dinner in ten minutes miss."

"Maybe there'll be drinks before hand, I'd better go down and see." She made her way downstairs and bounced in an unladylike way into the dining room. She stopped in mid-step. "Streaky! What are you doing here? Daddy, you surely didn't expect me to dress for this long length of piss? I don't believe it."

"No Kathleen, I didn't expect you to dress for any guest of mine and by the look of you, I was right. Now miss I advise you to watch your words because David here is going to be in full charge of you for the next few weeks. He's your summer school tutor."

"You've got to be fucking joking!"

"Sorry, I am perfectly serious and I have given David clear instructions to use whatever methods he deems appropriate to see that you get enough work done to pass your exams when they come up again in November. I've also given him permission to punish you in the good old fashioned way if you do not do as you are told."

"So I'm going to be imprisoned in my room for the whole summer while Mr. Bighead Brainbox tries to teach me things I don't want to know and have no intention of learning. No way!"

"I'm sorry to hear that miss," David butted in, "But no, you won't be imprisoned here. I have studying to do as well and I can only do that on the water so you will be living with me on my old trawler moored on the River Sturt. We get to it from Brightwell Quay and it's about a mile from there out towards the sea. It's got most of the usual conveniences although some may seem a little primitive by the standards here."

"I'm not going! I'm not living with you on a bloody pokey little boat."

"You aren't being given a choice dear," her father pointed out. "You see, while the two J's had you under surveillance, they also found evidence of your using drugs and noted who the dealers were and we've photographic evidence of that as well as the sexual things you did. You wouldn't be very popular with your erstwhile friends if that evidence should fall into the hands of the police. In fact, their bosses could get very nasty towards you."

"You're blackmailing me?"

"Yes, if that's the way you see it. Now shall we eat? I know David wants to get away quickly so he can get to the boat before dark."

"You bastard! As a father you're crap!" She turned to leave but Jake stood in the doorway. "Fuck you!" she snarled at him and returned to the table. The meal was taken in an uneasy silence. Kathy managed to get three glasses of wine before the bottle was removed from her reach. David didn't touch it because he had to drive. He'd only had his license a few months and had no wish to lose it.