“Clusk,” I corrected. The interviewer’s face hinted that he thought something alone the lines of, ‘What a peculiar name’. “And at the moment I don’t do anything. Hence why I’m here, hoping wildly for this job.”

I laughed like I was making a joke, but he just stared at me with his harsh eyes, muttered something and scribbled on a sheet of paper on a clipboard. Great, I thought. The old Jennifer Clusk humour isn’t going to be doing me any favours today. Chardonnay, here I come.

“I see. And what was your job prior to this?”

“I worked as a bank teller.”

He scribbled again.

“There’s an awful lot of money in that. No one in their right mind would leave a job like that. Tell me, Miss Clucks: why were you relieved of your position?”

He set those stony eyes on me again. The man looked more like a bouncer than an interviewer, but most of the time his face looked almost blank. There was just enough in it to see that he was judging. His suit was black, like his hair, and his chubby cheeks had the finest hint of subtle on them.

“Clusk,” I corrected again, “and the bank closed down. Everyone there was relieved of their position.” Now I could feel venom creeping into my voice. Calm down, Jen. You need this.

He returned to his clipboard and began to scribble once more without looking up. The sound of that pencil lead scraping across his paper was almost as grating as he was.

Stop writing.

“Well, I would assume they would have moved some of the staff elsewhere.”

Stop writing.

“Anyone of any value.”

Stop writing!

He stopped. My cheeks flushed red. Did he hear me?

“Do you agree, Miss Clucks?”

If I was red before I was scarlet now. How did he get my name wrong again? He was looking at a sheet with it written at the top in block capitals not three seconds ago!

“It’s Clusk, not Clucks.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My surname. You keep calling me Miss Clucks, but my surname is Clusk. Please, I’ve corrected you several times now.”

“It is?” he asked as if genuinely surprised.

“Yes!”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s at the top of your sheet of paper!”

He looked down.

“My lord, so it is.”

At last.

“So, the answer to my question, Miss Clusk?”