by Lorraine Bowyer

Created on: March 22, 2009

The Demise of the estate agent

Candice would never know that her fate had been sealed the day she had marched into the office and punched the air with her tightly clenched right fist. "YES!" she had shouted, "Credit crunch, what credit crunch?" as she stood laughing in the middle of the office, revelling in her moment of glory.

Candice had once again been living up to her reputation of Strickland Property Sales' most successful sales negotiator. She appeared unaffected by the mood of despondency that had blanketed most estate agencies, as each month her sales figures held firm and she continued to earn commission. As a direct result of the economic downturn, Marcus Strickland had already been forced to let go', two of the junior sales people and unless the market picked up soon, he could see himself having to make more difficult decisions.

There were some fairly obvious reasons for Candice's success. At 23 she was very tall, just under six feet, shapely with blonde curling hair and a pneumatic chest. Candice was all too aware of her attributes and dressed accordingly; her clothes appeared to have been bought one size too small and her figure filled them to capacity. By comparison, the remaining employees were strictly background. James, the senior negotiator was approaching sixty and planning his retirement. Peter, in his forties was single and dull. Della, in her mid-twenties had worked for Marcus as his secretary since she had left school and was also the principal carer for her disabled mother. She had harboured a desire to move into sales, but that was before Candice had arrived.

It was Della who hated Candice the most; she envied her looks, her figure but more than anything, she envied her future. Candice was confident and self-assured in her own abilities, whereas Della was short and dumpy with dismal hair and a face made unfortunate by a permanent scowl. Della hid her most unusual feature of one blue eye and one brown eye by using a single brown coloured contact lens Recently Della had become increasingly suspicious of Candice's success but she was far more annoyed that Marcus had given Candice the job of re-vamping the firm's marketing and sales photography - everyone knew that Della had always been responsible for the display boards.

Della was almost sure that Candice had been surreptitiously accessing the confidential client files. She believed that Candice had been trying to introduce clients who wanted to make mortgage applications to landlords desperate

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