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before she selected a single yellow sheet.
    Irene leaned forward. She could
nearly feel the triumph radiating from the man sitting next to her.
    ‘Kendrick has unearthed some
interesting facts about you, Irene. For instance, there was a job in Raleigh when you accumulated a number of
parking fines.’ Miss Manning raised both eyebrows as she stared into the
camera, playing to the audience. ‘And there was the night you seem to have
spent in a police cell?’
    Irene could hear the audible sigh
from the audience as they sensed her chances slipping away. Kendrick shifted in
his seat, not sure whether to be proud of his investigative success or
embarrassed at this public denouncement of his rival. He looked across to her,
as if to apologise. Aware that Ms Manning appreciated a fighter, Irene hit
back.
    ‘I was certainly in a police cell,
Ms Manning, but only for shelter. I was returning home from the University and
had run out of money. The police offered to help.’
    Ms Manning allowed her eyebrows to
drop. ‘So I understand.’ She replaced the yellow sheet of paper and closed the
file. ‘So now I have to make a decision. Now I have to choose one neophyte and
order the unsuccessful candidate to go on the streets.’
    The audience had been waiting
expectantly for those words. ‘On the streets!’ they echoed, chanting in
choreographed enjoyment.
    Kendrick straightened in his seat.
His glance at Irene might have included sympathy.
    Ms Manning continued. ‘I have
watched you both over the last few months, I have viewed hundreds of hours of
video tape, read your files and interviewed you personally, but now I must
pronounce the final decision.’ When she leaned back, Ms Manning’s immaculately
styled hair barely touched the carved logo on the headrest. She looked from one
candidate to the other, pressed the tips of her fingers together and smiled.
    ‘It’s a big decision, choosing a
successor. Who do I want? What do I want?’ She sighed. ‘I want somebody
who is expert at business, so my Corporation does not go down the pan.
    Somebody who will fight for what he ,’
Ms Manning’s eyes focussed on Kendrick, and then slid across to Irene, ‘or she ,
believes. I want somebody who can identify a failing but potentially successful
company, buy it and turn it around. I want somebody honest and incredibly hard
working. I want a fighter.’ She shook her head solemnly, ‘I want somebody
similar to me.’
    The audience cheered, as Ms
Manning had certainly intended. Irene felt herself smiling and knew that
Kendrick was doing exactly the same. Ms Manning had that effect on people.
    She had the power of manipulation.
    Ms Manning sat up straight and
nodded into the nearest camera. There was a hush as the great screens rolled
slowly back so that the appearance of a boardroom altered into the television
studio that it in fact was. Now only a few yards of space and coils of
television cable separated the contestants from the audience. Irene was
suddenly conscious that hundreds of pairs of eyes were fixed on her back. The
cameras had been intrusive but impersonal, machines rather than people, but now
she fancied that she could hear the breathing of each individual among the
crowd, she could nearly smell the cologne and after shave with which they had
doused themselves.
    ‘I have come to a decision.’ Ms
Manning leaned back in her chair, allowing her head to rest just beneath the
Manning logo. Even then, Irene could admire the perfect set of her hair and the
manicured nails that lay in line with the arm rests. The overhead lights
gleamed on the ruby that was central to the single ring encircling her
forefinger. There was a matching ruby on the antique necklace around her neck.
    Irene could not look at Kendrick,
although she was very aware of his suddenly shallow breathing. The audience had
receded to unimportance.
    ‘Within the next two minutes,’
Miss Manning addressed the contestants, ‘one of you will be my neophyte and