The boss was twenty-six, a popular but poorly educated entrepreneur with two children, she also owned a thriving taxi business, Ring-A-Ride. That she lived with the senior partner of the most successful solicitors in town surprised no one. That she had nothing to do with the taxi business which could be a bit iffy at times was even less of a surprise. The evening in question the night drivers came on shift at six-thirty as usual. As was normal for that time during the week business was very slow and the drivers just hung around in the office drinking coffee and swapping tales, mostly concerning the crazy world that was taxiing. Susan, the boss, was talking about a new set of day driver contracts that she was negotiating with the local education authority when the man walked in.

She changed instantly from her usual pleasant self to an effing and blinding virago. “Out,” she screamed, “I told you I never wanted to see you again.” The drivers, who were mostly men, couldn’t understand her reaction to the guy. At first he seemed to be a decent enough looking man, five six maybe seven, lightly built, well dressed, a white silk shirt with a grey silk tie visible underneath his unbuttoned, long, black, leather coat and highly polished black shoes. But then they noticed the stunning smile seemed somehow forced, almost glued on, and his nails were dirty and down to the quick. With a bit more thought he seemed to be a sleazy bloke on the make.

They became very protective of Susan as they realised they were looking at Peter, her ex-husband. Peter they knew had been an accountant, but had been sent down for three years for embezzling his clients’ funds. He had also cleaned Susan out and she had had to start all over again without ever having received any financial help from him. He had left her with the two kids and even when he had been released, two years ago, he hadn’t tried to make any contact with or to provide for his daughters.

They knew he had always been profligate with money and spent all he had, and the money of others too, on designer clothes and flashy jewellery. Susan had seen the word ostentatious somewhere and thought it fitted him to a tee; since then she had always described him as an ostentatious bastard. He had come scrounging, and explained that the social would no longer give him anything in benefits. They all wondered what he had done to precipitate that, and felt no sympathy whatsoever when he explained that just to eat he was working as an agricultural labourer, which explained his nails.

Susan didn’t need any protecting. She wasn’t six stone wringing wet through, but she’d run a taxi office day and night in a city centre for ten years, starting the day she left school, and could handle herself. She literally threw him out. Peter bounced just before the white line in the middle of the side street in front of the office. She clapped her hands as if to rid herself of any contamination and said, “I feel a whole lot better for that. Now these day contracts. Oh before I forget, I’m going to want a full squad out, night and day drivers, on Saturday day shift on the seventeenth of October for my wedding. Fifty quid bonus for every driver that does the full day shift. We’ll sort the grave yard shift out later. Yvonne asked me last week and I said yes. I’ve booked the town hall for the do, you’re all invited and City Cabs can take us home that night cos we’re closed.”

Like I said, she a popular boss.