'I'm waiting!'

Oh, crumbs! Dumbly Yancie stared at him. If he'd only smile-he had rather an attractive mouth. She blinked. For goodness' sake pull yourself together-had this man totally scrambled her brain?

'I-er-can't tell you,' she managed falteringly.

'What-the mileage scam or what you were doing being where you shouldn't have been?'

Neither, actually. `There's no great scam,' she replied-well, you could hardly call fifty oddly miles a scam.

'So, what business did you have-other than the company's business?'

Oh, honestly! Why didn't he back off? Because he was it, that was why. He was the numero uno, the big cheese, and, having her on the end of his pin, he was enjoying making her squirm-and she didn't like it. Had her errand been for herself, then, she conceded, she might very well have told him what she was about. But there wasn't only herself to think about here-there was Wilf. Wilf had a wife and four young children. And, while Yancie was having to face that there was a very real danger here that she might be looking for alternative employment at any moment now, she just couldn't wish the same fate on Wilf. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if, through her, Wilf too was dismissed.

'You're not going to say?"

'I- No,' she mumbled.

Thomson Wakefield didn't seem to have expected any other answer, but leaned back in his chair and, looking sternly at her, he questioned, `Just how badly do you want to keep your job?'.

Yancie felt sick in the pit of her stomach. She was about to be dismissed, she knew it. `Very badly,' she answered. `I really, really need it,' she emphasised, in a last-ditch hope.

Thomson Wakefield's look sharpened. `You have a family to keep-a child?'

" 1'm not married.'

He leaned back in his chair again, his look speculative. `You are acquainted with the facts of life?' he queried.