At 9.50, Nadine activated the patch beneath her jaw.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
Her voice came back lower, with flatter vowels and firmer consonants. The clinic described the setting as ‘regionally neutral with customer confidence’. Nadine had selected the basic version. The premium package offered a broader pitch range, smoother articulation at speed and less audible strain during long conversations.
She tried her name.
‘Nadine Okoro.’
She had chosen the words. She had shaped them in the usual way. What reached her ears sounded as though somebody had rehearsed being Nadine.
The estate agency occupied a converted bank building between a chemist and a phone case shop. She had arrived seventeen minutes early but waited outside before starting the ninety-minute lease. There was no reason to pay for a voice while standing beside a bin.
She entered at 9.52.
The receptionist looked up.
‘Can I help?’
‘I’m here to see Ms Leach. Ten o’clock.’
The receptionist smiled.
‘Of course. Take a seat.’
Nadine had used her own voice when booking the appointment. The receptionist had asked her to repeat the time twice.
Ms Leach collected her from reception. Ms Leach was in her forties, with a firm handshake and a voice that had not been approved by anyone.
‘You found us all right?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Lovely. You sound much more relaxed than you did on the telephone.’
‘I was on a bus.’
‘That’ll do it.’
The interview took place in a meeting room with photographs of houses that nobody in the office could afford. A second interviewer joined them by video. His name was Martin Vale, the regional sales director. His camera showed the lower half of a framed certificate and one large plant.
Ms Leach began with Nadine’s experience.
That part went well. Nadine had managed rental accounts, arranged repairs, handled complaints and once persuaded a landlord that a ceiling falling into a bath was not mainly inconvenient for him. She knew how to speak to angry people without promising things the company would not provide.
Martin Vale asked what she would do if a seller rejected a realistic valuation.
‘I’d explain the comparable sales and ask what figure they had in mind.’
At her normal speed, the altered articulation blurred her last few words. Nadine slowed down.
‘Then I’d make clear what we could support with evidence.’
‘Good,’ Vale said. ‘Calm. Confident.’
The answer had been Nadine’s. The lease had changed what he heard in it.
Ms Leach made a note.
‘We deal with a broad range of clients here. Some are nervous. Some are making the largest financial decision of their lives.’
‘Most of them,’ Nadine said.
There was a pause.
She had meant the remark lightly, but the patch removed the upward turn she usually gave it. The sentence came out as a correction.
Ms Leach smiled.
‘Quite.’
They moved on to targets, weekend work and the firm’s commitment to treating every property as an individual journey. Nadine had read the phrase on its website and still did not know where the properties were supposed to go.
Vale leaned closer to his camera.
‘How would you describe your communication style?’
The clinic had supplied a suggested answer in its interview guide. Nadine had deleted it.
‘Direct.’
Ms Leach’s pen stopped.
‘But adaptable,’ Nadine added.
‘That’s important,’ Vale said. ‘Different clients need different versions of us.’
Nadine touched the edge of the patch.
‘I was told there was a concern about my spoken presentation.’
Ms Leach glanced at the screen.
‘Not a concern.’
‘The email said concern.’
‘More an area for consideration.’
‘What needed considering?’
Vale answered.
‘Client fit.’
‘Which clients?’
‘It isn’t about any particular group.’
‘Then what does fit mean?’
Each question came out level and controlled. The patch changed the pitch and rhythm that would normally have warned that Nadine was angry.
Ms Leach put down her pen.
‘You have to understand that property is personal. People respond to small things. Pace. Tone. Familiarity.’
‘I grew up six miles from here.’
‘Yes, but local doesn’t always mean the same thing to everyone.’
That appeared to settle it.
Vale asked two more questions. Nadine gave him examples involving a broken boiler and a tenant who had paid rent to someone posing as the landlord’s nephew. Ms Leach laughed in the correct places. Both interviewers looked pleased when the meeting ended.
‘We’d like to offer you the position,’ Ms Leach said.
Nadine had expected relief. Instead, she calculated.
The salary was higher than her current pay. Once the introductory rate ended, the voice would cost £8.50 an hour.
‘There is one thing,’ Ms Leach said. ‘We’re having lunch with a client at twelve. Nothing formal. It would be useful for you to join us.’
Nadine’s lease ended at eleven twenty.
‘I thought the interview finished at eleven.’
‘It will. Lunch is simply a chance to meet the team.’
Vale nodded from the screen.
‘Consistency matters in this business. Clients become attached to the person they first meet.’
‘You mean the voice.’
Ms Leach looked surprised.
‘I mean the whole impression.’
The adhesive pressed against Nadine’s skin when she swallowed.
‘Can you stay?’
Nadine opened the leasing app beneath the table. Another two hours would leave £23.40 in her current account.
‘I can stay,’ she said.
She approved the extension.