I put the files down next to Saul as he sat, and he looked around the room.

‘You know, we asked Steve if we could do up the staffroom, but he told us he couldn’t possibly justify using some of the budget for our comfort when he could use it for something for the students instead. I get that funds are always tight, but that man had never heard of the concept of employee wellbeing.’

I cast a critical eye over the sink and the stack of mugs. ‘You could do with a cupboard, at least.’

‘Exactly, we weren’t asking for a sauna and a two-thousand-pound coffee machine. We just wanted to feel comfortable in here. But according to Steve Wilkinson, it wasn’t our job to feel comfortable. He’d even talked about taking away the comfy chairs and lining the room with work desks, so this could be “productive space”,’ he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm on the last two words. ‘He expected everyone to be here by seven thirty every morning, even those who have young kids themselves, and he once told one of the primary teachers that if she was leaving at four every day he’d have to work her a bit harder. He made a joke out of it, but you could tell he honestly thought people should spend their every waking hour at work.’

I sank into a chair as Saul ranted on, about how Steve had organised a motivational speaker to come in and spur them on to work harder.

‘Essentially, the woman told us that if we were stressed it was our own fault, and we needed to change the way we reacted to situations if we wanted to prevent stress. I’d never heard such a load of bollocks in my entire life, but half of the staff lapped it up. Some of them even printed out some little pithy quotes to stick above their desks, to remind themselves that stress is a choice, or some other nonsense. That was the thing about Steve. He got people to work harder by convincing them it was what they wanted to do, and when they were stressed to shit and burnt-out he told them it was their own fault. And most of them believed that too.’ Saul shook his head as he paused in his tirade. ‘You know the strangest thing?’

‘What?’

‘I still liked him, in a way. He had that sort of charisma that means you can’t help but like someone, even when you can’t stand them at the same time.’