Risk-The word's definition is largely dependant on what or whom it's being applied to. If it defines something that you as an individual are contemplating, it creates the uneasy feeling that you could be embarking on something really stupid. On the other hand, when you're in the abstract safety zone of the observer, it has a titillating quality. Take, for example, the guy at the crap table who bets his night's winnings on one more roll. If he loses, he's just another sucker who didn't know when to quit. But what if he wins? Ahah! If he wins, he's an exciting guy, an adventurer who beat the odds and has a pile of money to prove it! Much the same with the guy who jumps his motorcycle ramp to ramp over thirty cars. If he makes it, cameras flash, girls flock around, and Harley Davidson gives him a hundred grand to endorse their product. If he crashes, he's either a very dumb crippled guy or an even dumber dead guy. In either case, the voyeuristic side of humankind is prepared to accept the outcome with some giddy degree of relish. Contact sports and live ente11ainment are glowing examples of their audience's ability to shift gears in milliseconds to extract vicarious pleasure. Both purport wholesome elements like skill, training, and durability, but both contain the possibility of physical injury and devastating failure. Those who attend these events do so with the expectation of either conclusion. Nothing could be more well documented as the Susan Boyle epic. A plump, frowzy woman whose very appearance provoked hoots, snickers, and head shaking from the show's judges, who, of course, promoted the same reaction from the audience. History now shows that Susan, the risk taker, was amazingly good and the audience cheered. But let's say she'd been pathetically awful and croaked out an off-key rendition with the audience going into an uncontrollable laughing jag. They still would have gone home thinking they'd got

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RISK

No Eulogy for Tin SoldiersBy JOHNNY MEAH

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Johnny Meah
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4923-2

Chapter One

Michelle closed the door of her living quarters and slipped on her clogs. She descended the three steps to the narrow carpet that separated her feet from the blistering hot pavement and slowly walked to the rear entryway of the main attraction tent. Chicago was an unpleasantly humid place, Michelle thought as she briefly glanced toward the downtown area and caught a glimpse of the early evening silhouette of the Sears Tower.

Another performer hailed her as she walked toward the mammoth, vinyl covered enclosure. "Want to finish this?" the girl asked, proffering a half full bottle of the health drink that Cirque insisted they have. Michelle declined with a polite smile as she thought about how much she'd rather be drinking a cold ale in a nice trendy bar down in the Loop.

Nadine, the girl who offered her the obnoxious tasting elixir, was one of the other eleven young women who'd trained with her in Montreal. Drafted from college gymnastic teams from the U.S. and Canada, they'd all spent a grueling year training to do various, acrobatic, circus acts under the tutelage of Cirque's militaristic coaches. After five months of Olympic level rigor, it was determined that her strongest suit was balance, so she then trained for the Celestial Circle, which was one of the most difficult and dangerous acts in the program.

As she stood in the darkness just inside the performer's entrance and scanned the seating area, Michelle noted that the audience was light, only a third of the cavernous tent's capacity. It was the third day of sparse attendance, and although the lowest priced tickets cost $80, rumors of the Chicago run being cut down still circulated.

The music changed, and the lights now illuminated the huge steel circle that hung over the stage.

Michelle calmly walked to an area barely out of the spotlight and kicked off her clogs. She took a resin bag from a grotesque looking, costumed caricature and applied two poufs of the chalky powder inside of it to the soles of her wire walking shoes. And despite the highly effective efforts of the management to distance the company from the image of a circus, Michelle was still a wire walker at the end of it all. In a traditional circus, the overly stylized man who handed her the resin bag would be a clown. But at Cirque, he was referred to as a "comique." There would be no grand announcement by a top-hatted ringmaster nor a whistle blast to signal the start of her act, she simply strolled in total anonymity into the spotlight.

As the suspended metal circle hung at floor height, Michelle stepped into it with ease and took a few steps to the front and back while the apparatus was slowly raised in the air. Next a motor that made the giant circle revolve was engaged, which drew some "oohs" and "ahhs" from the audience as Michelle slightly jogged to keep up with the ever revolving hoop.

In the initial development of the apparatus and subsequent training of the gymnasts to perform on it, the coaches had established that beyond a brisk walk the only feat that could be performed safely on it was a leaping split. Michelle always executed this daring act flawlessly, but something was wrong tonight. Her wire shoes felt gummy and seemed to be sticking to the metal. Because of this hindrance, her takeoff for the leap had been slow, and she nearly lost her balance upon landing. Fear, an emotion she seldom experienced, set in. Her common sense told her to signal for the lowering of the rigging.

She shrugged off her fear and replaced it with caution, a much more functional emotion that she'd been taught to use at the training center in Montreal. She wrapped her arms and legs around the metal hoop and rode it to the top. Ideally, the motor that turned the giant circle would be turned off long enough for her to swing her body over to the outside top of the rigging. Then the motor would be started again and she'd resume walking on the outside of the circle. It was certainly a breathtaking finale to the act as there was no balancing pole customarily seen in a conventional high wire act nor were there "safety zone" platforms at either end of the wire.

Michelle swung her body to the top of the circle and settled for a moment in a crouched position. She then re-established her balance and stood as the circle turned again. Normally, she would only take a few steps to finish the trick. Then, wrapping her body around the rigging, it would be lowered to the ground. That's the way the act always ended, except tonight. To the horror of the otherwise blasé audience, her first step proved to be her last. Her feet became hopelessly stuck to the metal. In a sudden panic, she tried to wrench herself free, causing her to lose her balance and sending her hurtling headlong to the stage fifty feet below.

In the case of nearly all daredevil feats gone awry, audiences never scream at first; the screaming comes shortly after. At the moment the mishap occurs, there's usually another sound; a very audible mass intake of breath, something akin to a room full of old people preparing to blow up a balloon. But tonight, this stunned audience, who sat helplessly in the world of Cirque, painfully exhaled as they viewed the twisted body of a dead girl.

Chapter Two

The two men stood motionless at the window and viewed the lighted skyline of Montreal from the plush, top floor, executive office. A phone rang, and the taller of the two retreated to his desk to answer it as he anxiously checked his watch. His end of the call was succinct and revealed nothing to his companion who remained at the window and carefully listened to the one-sided conversation.

"Uh huh.... I see ... Good. Uh huh. Let me know. Bye".

The man, who'd taken the call, returned to the window, but remained silent. He quietly knew that the second window gazer would inquire about his covert conversation.

"Do you really think these calls should be coming here?" the shorter man asked with a trace of apprehension in his voice. "Are you going paranoid on me, Gilles?" said the tall man as he turned toward his inquisitor, Gilles.

Concerned, Gilles silently looked out toward the misty sky. "It's way too early in the game to be concerned about anyone tracing calls. You watch too many cop shows. Besides, the phone company doesn't save that information beyond thirty days". "Good. So what happened then, Claude?"

The rumple-suited Gilles seated himself on the edge of the desk as though anticipating a detailed answer. He knew, however, that Claude's report on the evening's events in Chicago would be short, and no speculation on what had transpired would be forthcoming. Claude settled himself in the large leather chair at his desk, leaned back, and closed his eyes. To a casual observer this might have been construed as the prelude to a well thought out answer, but Gilles knew better. After a twenty year relationship, he knew that Claude had closed the door on today and was reviewing tomorrow's battle plan. He would, however, answer the question.

"The gross was lower than we expected, only a one-third house. The girl died, and we managed to get the stuff and dispose of it," Claude said with less emotion than contained in an opening financial report.

A quiet look of remorse fell upon Gilles's face as he stared at the darkening sky.

"I'm going to dinner now," Claude said as he rose from his chair and added, "1 don't expect there'll be anything else. But if there are any media calls, public relations will handle them tomorrow. See you in the morning."

Gilles watched him stroll into his personal elevator in the right corner of his office and waved as the door closed. He was rarely invited to dinner and was only requested to appear publicly with the owner of Cirque occasionally. Although listed corporately as partners, Claude and Gilles disliked each other. Much like the Vegas magicians, Penn and Teller, they each brought enough to the table to make the product work. And that was sufficient.

Gilles calmly exited their office building as he mulled over his conversation with Claude. Out in the warm evening air, he removed his sports jacket and swung it over his shoulder. He walked two blocks and entered his favorite restaurant and bar, a place that his extravagant partner would disdainfully regard as a "greasy spoon." Claude would hate this place, he thought with a smile as the bartender delivered the same drink that he'd served him for the last fifteen years. Tonight, Claude would be dining in some upscale restaurant with his current piece of eye candy. Later, they'd go to his penthouse two floors above the office, have a few drinks, and if he'd qualified her, they'd adjourn to the thirteenth floor to the "funhouse", which was a small room right off the elevator that was densely decorated with painfully pleasurable, adult toys. Here the girl would be chained up, slapped around, and screwed in every imaginable manner. She would then leave with at least a thousand dollars more than she arrived with.

Gilles picked up his drink and sat down in a booth to order dinner. Ordinarily, he liked the old jazz ballads that played over the house system, but tonight Billy Holiday was singing, Why Am I Here, Why Am I Living. His thoughts turned darkly introspective. He knew why he was here; because there was no place left to escape to. As to the second more cerebral question, Claude controlled not only Gilles's existence, but the end of it when he concluded that his little disheveled partner had outlived his usefulness.

In a less than brilliant legal career, Gilles LeVesque had come full circle from defending criminals to becoming one. Although hardly a moral success story, it was certainly a financial one. With a visible income of nearly two hundred thousand dollars yearly and an invisible income of several million, he was probably in better shape than his flamboyant partner. On the other side of the tarnished coin, the Cirque corporation was broke. And despite all the legal camouflage Gilles had managed to drape it with, the public revelation of that fact was eminent. That's why the current, insidious plot had been hatched and left an embryo acrobat's body in the Chicago morgue with several more to follow. If the plan worked and the morbidly titillated public turned out in strong enough numbers to see if another performer would suffer a similar fate, Cirque would limp to the prescribed finish line without an ounce of red ink showing. A financial group in Holland would buy the two units in Las Vegas, and the remaining equipment would be sold. It would be the end of what Gilles had sorely grown to think of as Cirque Morte.

Gilles elected to leave his car in the parking garage and walked the five blocks to his apartment. A burly man standing in the doorway of a tattoo shop greeted him with a nod as he ushered out a customer with a bandaged arm.

"Busy tonight?" Gilles asked the shop's proprietor and added, "You look tired." "Pretty busy. Really, I'm just tired of what I'm doing. Guess I'd like to find something creative that doesn't involve the loss of blood," replied the tattoo artist as he glanced into the crowded parlor.

Me too, Gilles thought.

Chapter Three

"You're quieter than usual, Romey," the uniformed security guard said to his companion. "Guess it's that business with the girl falling last night. Terrible thing:' Romeo Bouchard answered as he removed his already sweaty Wackenhut Security hat and wiped his forehead.

"Particularly for these people. They have several of their shows around the country, and you never hear about accidents".

"Oh, every so often you see something on T.V. about an accident with one of those gypsified little circuses that travel around, but not with something like this. Well, I'm going inside where it's air conditioned, maybe some of those little hotties will be practicing. Wanna come?" "I'll pass. Besides, I think they're trained not to talk to outsiders".

But Bouchard didn't have circus girls on his mind. He lied to Claude Marchand on the phone last night about the disposal of the resin bag, and people who lied to Mr. Marchand had a nasty habit of disappearing from the planet Earth. He knew this all too well because he'd personally attended to many of the disappearances.

He walked to the tent pole where the can holding the resin bag was attached, but as he got closer, he saw that the bag was lying on the ground. He quickly glanced around to see if he was being observed. Next, he kicked the bag cautiously and dropped his cigarette pack beside it in the event someone was watching.Then, he bent and snagged both items deftly. The bag was cold and hard as a rock, exactly what he'd been told would happen to it. The heat from the girl's hand had activated the catalyst he'd added to the bag and turned the contents to a sort of powdered super glue. It then hardened into a cold lump. And the mission was accomplished. There was a bank of Jiffy Johns next to the tent, so he deposited his deactivated death package in one of them. He knew it would be pumped out before tonight's show.

As Bouchard returned to his cohort who was seated in the marquee, he noted that a line had formed at the ticket wagon, which was unusual for the Chicago run because the bulk of the tickets for the show were sold online.

The ticket wagon was one of the few throwbacks to an old fashioned circus in evidence around Cirque, and it functioned more as a public relations booth. Wackenhut Security was the exclusive provider of guards that Cirque used in their seven U.S. operations. In most of their installations, they provided a dozen people, and only two of which had interchangeable duties. Of course, local police were employed, but they functioned mostly on the outer perimeter of the show grounds and were summoned only in the event of an emergency, such as last night's accident.

Romeo Bouchard had risen to the rank of a superintendant for the security company, therefore, he was one of the two men free to patrol all areas of any site the company had been hired to oversee. A solidly built man in his late forties with the unrevealing face of a cop, he had worked for Wackenhut for eleven years, having emigrated to the U.S. from a similar job with the company in Canada. Neither his co-workers nor employers knew anything of his private life, undoubtedly a good thing as he was a part-time assassin. He was so efficient at his sideline that he grew very popular with the underworld of Chicago.

Bouchard's last assignment had been nearly a year earlier when he'd been dispatched to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field to kill an out-of-favor mobster named Vito Moscera. Picking a day when the attendance would be predictably low, Bouchard dressed as a seat vendor and located his victim. He knew that Moscera always sat in sparsely populated areas, not wishing to be bothered by talkative baseball fans. He also knew that most of the other vendors would concentrate on the populated seating areas, leaving the fat gangster craving his favorite ballpark treat—a hotdog.

Moscera had waved franticly at the bogus seat vendor. Bouchard approached him and smiled as he gripped the silencer equipped thirty eight that was nestled among the steamed buns. Moscera unwittingly accommodated him as he hunched forward to get his wallet out and provided a perfect shield to anyone who might have been watching. Bouchard shot him once in the head and chest, two "whoofs" that went unheard through the noise of the crowd. He walked, unhurriedly, up the steep aisle to the upper corridor where he boarded a freight elevator and disappeared. He ditched the vendor paraphanalia and pocketed the gun en route. As he reached the street, the announcer called for the seventh inning stretch.

Vito Moscera would not be participating.

Unlike those who were often apprehended, Romeo Bouchard approached the business of killing in a scientific manner. He used the mathematical laws of probability as a guide. Because he employed an element of surprise and used the most suitable instrument of death, the act of killing someone was relatively simple for Bourchand. The second part of the equation, escaping the scene of the event undetected, required far more planning.

Orchestrating a deadly accident was far more complicated and pushed the odds in the wrong direction. No matter how well planned, the "accident" wasn't always deadly and potentially left a living witness to relay the events that lead up to the accident and identify the culprit responsible for it. It was for this reason that Romeo preferred more cut and dried events like the Wrigley Field contract. He could have easily declined the killing of the circus girl, but hadn't because Marchand had been a frequent, high paying client in the past. Still, there were things that bothered him. Why, for example, did the girl have to die in such a public way? If this was some tootsie that had insulted the show owner or rejected his sexual advances (the reason for two of his previous "hits" for Marchand), why not simply shoot her? The second negative element had been the pre-packaged nature of the killing device, which was a two part compound alleged to have been developed by N.A.S.A.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from RISKby JOHNNY MEAH Copyright © 2012 by Johnny Meah. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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PBShop.store US

Wood Dale, IL, U.S.A.

Venditore con 5 stelle

Venditore AbeBooks dal 7 aprile 2005

Tariffe di spedizione nazionale per U.S.A.

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Metodi di pagamento

Descrizione dello Store

We first started out as “The Paperback Exchange,” a chain of physical bookstores where we would part exchange your beloved books for new stories to transport you to faraway places. However, as shopping started to evolve to online shops and marketplaces, we bid our stores goodbye to become “PBShop.” This transition has only allowed us to blossom as we now ship thousands of titles to book lovers across the globe. We pride ourselves in being a community of local book lovers which allows our passion and devotion to shine in everything we do. In 2020 we not only celebrated our 20th birthday but our 1st birthday as being completely employee owned after becoming an E.O.T in September 2019. We are proud to be different and embrace standing apart on a book mountain by working from a virtual inventory which allows us to provide thousands of books that may be difficult to get for your bookshelf or your studies. Working with a number of different suppliers allows us to explore other avenues such as puzzles, sheet music and even stationery so we really do have something for everyone. Life is about being versatile in all realms of existence. If this is your first visit or you are a returning customer, we would like to welcome you to the PBShop family, for there is no friend as loyal as a book. We are a company who put our customers at the centre of everything we do as we understand the importance of reading because once you learn to read, you will forever be free. There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that we are yet to explore, which is why we will forever inspire curious minds.…

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Returns Policy
We ask all customers to contact us for authorisation should they wish to return their order. Orders returned without authorisation may not be credited.
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Returns requested beyond this time will not be authorised.

Our team will provide full instructions on how to return your order and once received our returns department will process your refund.
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Informazioni sul diritto di recesso

Diritto legale di recesso

Hai il diritto di recedere dal presente contratto entro 14 giorni senza fornire alcuna motivazione.

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Dovrai rispedire i beni o consegnarli a PBShop.store US, Springfield Gardens, New York, U.S.A., +44 1285 712917, senza indebito ritardo e, in ogni caso, entro 14 giorni dal giorno in cui ci hai comunicato la tua volontà di recedere dal presente contratto. Il termine è rispettato se rispedisci i beni prima della scadenza del periodo di 14 giorni. I costi diretti della restituzione dei beni saranno a tuo carico. Sei responsabile solo della diminuzione del valore dei beni risultante da una manipolazione diversa da quella necessaria per stabilire la natura, le caratteristiche e il funzionamento dei beni stessi.

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La fornitura di giornali, periodici o riviste ad eccezione dei contratti di abbonamento; e
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Condizioni di spedizione

Books are shipped from our US or UK warehouses. Delivery estimates allow for delivery from either location.

Privacy e sicurezza

We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal data. This policy tells you how we will collect and use your personal data, and what you should expect in respect of the personal information about you that we have collected.

We are PBShop.co.uk Limited (registered in England & Wales with Company No: 9366362). Our registered office is at Swatton Barn, Badbury, Swindon, SN4 0EU, United Kingdom.

The person with responsibility for our data protection compliance is the Managing Director and they can be contacted via email at help@pbshop.store.

We are the data controller of the personal data that we keep and use, and we are therefore responsible for making sure that our systems, processes and people comply with the relevant data protection laws in respect of that personal data.

We will act in respect of personal data to comply with the six principles of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which are:

Lawfulness, fairness and transparency;
Purpose limitation;
Data minimisation;
Accuracy;
Storage limitation;
Integrity and confidentiality.
You have rights in respect of how your personal data can be processed; these include the right to request:

a copy of your personal data;
that inaccurate data is rectified; and
that your personal data is, in certain circumstances, erased or restricted.
You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner, which you can do by contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) directly. Full contact details, including a helpline number, can be found on the ICO website (www.ico.org.uk). This website also has useful information on your rights and our obligations. However, please raise any concerns or issues with us first so that we may deal with this as quickly as possible for you.

COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL DATA
We collect and process data for the following reasons:

personal data collected and created in relation to our selling books and other items; and
personal data relating to our people (which means those people working for our company, or providing services to us, or potentially working or providing services to us, including employees, consultants, temporary or casual workers and contractors).
All of our people are required to abide by our Privacy Policy when handling personal data, and are provided with appropriate data protection training. Any breach of data protection will be taken seriously, and may result in disciplinary action.

Selling books and other items
COLLECTION:
We will collect personal information which may include names, addresses and other information for our customers. This will be done for the management of the commercial relationship with our customers.

We may collect this personal data from you directly, and also from third parties, including publicly available third party sources. Additional personal data will be collected as it is created by or supplied to us in the course of anything we do for you.

USE:
We will use the personal data in the course of making sales and to comply with requirements that we are required to undertake.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

in performance of a contract (the agreement to sell books and other items); and/or
compliance with a legal obligation; and/or
vital interests of the data subject; and/or
where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
We may also use your personal data in the following situations, which are likely to be far less common:

where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests);
where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
DISCLOSURE:
We may share personal data with third parties as is necessary in the sale of books and other items, including to third party providers who deliver services to support the operation of our company.

In respect of all disclosures of personal data, we will only share the personal information which is necessary for the particular purpose for which it is provided, or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so, and we will ensure that the personal data is appropriately protected.

RETENTION PERIOD:
We will keep personal data only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. Normally, our retention period for personal data collected for this purpose is a minimum of 6 years after the end of the period that we are selling books and other items.

Our people
COLLECTION:
We will collect names, addresses, contact details, education and employment history, identity and other background checks (which may include appropriate criminal and financial checks and confirmation of the right to work in the UK), marital status and information on next of kin and dependents, financial information (such as bank details and NI numbers), date of birth, gender, a copy of your passport and driving licence, performance information and compensation history, recruitment information (including references), salary, benefits, pension and annual leave information, disciplinary and grievance information, photographs, information about your use of our information and communications systems and CCTV footage or other information obtained through electronic means.

We may collect and use special categories of personal data as required in the carrying out of obligations and exercising specific rights of us or the data subject in the field of employment. This may include information relating to matters such as health, racial origin, religious belief and offences or alleged offences.

Personal data may be collected from you during the selection process (for example via your application form and CV) and during your employment (including holiday forms, expense claims, performance reviews, any disciplinary or grievance processes), or from third parties, including referees, health service providers, background check providers.

USE:
Personal data of our people will be used for HR administration and management, both in respect of the selection of people to work for us (including suitability, eligibility and/or fitness to work), and those who do work for us, to include learning and development, disciplinary and security (of people, offices and data) requirements, providing and liaising with benefits providers, business management and planning (including accounting and auditing), paying you and dealing with tax and NI deductions, assessing and deciding on salary reviews and compensation, conducting performance reviews and managing performance, dealing with legal disputes involving you or others, preventing fraud, monitoring your use of our information and communications systems, ensuring compliance with our policies, and equal opportunities monitoring.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

In performance of a contract with you; and/or
compliance with a legal obligation; and/or
vital interests of the data subject; and/or
where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
We may also use your personal data in the following situations, which are likely to be less common:

where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests);
where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
In respect of all disclosures of personal data, we will only share the personal information which is necessary for the particular purpose for which it is provided, or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so, and we will ensure that the personal data is appropriately protected.

In respect of special categories of personal data, we may process this in the following circumstances:

in limited circumstances with your explicit written consent; and/or
where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our policies; and/or
where it is needed in the public interest (such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme), and in line with our policies; and/or
where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your (or someone else’s) interests and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about our people (or former people) in the course of our legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.

The special categories of personal data may be used in the following ways:

in relation to leaves of absence, to comply with employment and other laws;
in relation to your physical or mental health, or disability status, to ensure your health and safety in the workplace and to assess your fitness to work, to monitor, manage and administer benefits and absences;
in relation to your race, national or ethnic origin, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs, or your sexual life or sexual orientation, to ensure meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting.
DISCLOSURE:
Personal data may be transferred to service providers who support the operation of our business (such as payroll service providers), to other third parties reasonably necessary in the conduct of our business (including insurers, professional advisors, regulators). These third parties may be acting as processor, or controller of personal data in their own right.

RETENTION PERIOD:
We will keep personal data only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. We will normally keep personal data of applicants who we do not employ for six months after we receive it.

We will keep personal data of employees throughout your employment and normally for a minimum of six years after your employment ends.

Changes to your personal data
It is very important that the personal information that we hold about you is accurate and current. Please tell us if your personal information changes during your relationship with us.

Data Security
We have put in place measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those of our people and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and the ICO of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Where we store your personal data
We principally store data, both electronically and on file, at our office.

Personal data may be transferred outside of the EEA by processors acting on our behalf. For transfers to countries not considered adequate by the EC, we will ensure that personal data is adequately protected, as required by the GDPR. This would include by use of the Standard Contractual Clauses adopted by the EC to protect personal data.

Your rights
Under certain circumstances, you have the right by law to request:

access to your personal data. This enables you to ask to receive a copy of the personal data that we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
erasure of your personal data.
object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on our legitimate interest and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
restriction of processing of your personal data.
transfer of your personal data to another party.
Links from our website
Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of third parties that we permit to make such links. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. We recommend that you check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on our website, so please ensure that you are viewing the correct version.

Please contact us if you have any questions, comments or requests regarding this Privacy Policy.

Last amended May 2021.

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