Diana had been hoping to get away by 5:00, so she could be at the farm in time for dinner. She tried not to show her true feelings when at 4:37 her deputy, Phil Haskings, presented her with a complex twelve-⁠page document that 30 ______ the signature of a director before it could be sent out to the client. Haskins didn't hesitate to 31 ______ her that they had lost two similar contracts that week.

To 32 ______ the truth, it was always the same on a Friday. The phones would go quiet in the middle of the afternoon and then, just as she thought she could leave, a new document would land on her desk. Diana looked at the document and knew there would be no chance of escaping before 6:00.

Diana adored her children. At first 33 ______ she looked happy. The demands of being a single parent as well as a director of a small but thriving City company meant there were 34 ______ moments left in any day to relax. When it came to the one weekend in four that James and Caroline spent with her ex-⁠husband, Diana would try to leave the office a little earlier than usual to avoid the weekend traffic.

She read through the first page slowly, aware that any mistake 35 ______ hastily on a Friday evening could be 36 ______ in the weeks to come. She glanced at the clock on her desk as the signed the final page of the document. It was just showing 5:51.

William and Philippa were rivals. They were considered the best students at New College. At the beginning of the third year they applied for the Charles Oldham Shakespeare prize for an essay. The chosen theme for the prize essay that year was "Satire in Shakespeare". Troilus and Cressida clearly called for the most attention, but both students 30 ______ to find satirical nuances in almost every play by Shakespeare. As the year was coming to an end, 31 ______ anyone doubted that either William or Philippa would win the prize while the other would come in second. 32 ______, no one was willing to express an opinion as to who the victor would be.

Before the prize essay submission date, they both had to take their final degree examinations. 33 ______ students studied as hard as William and Philippa. It came as no surprise to anyone that they both achieved first-⁠class degrees in the final honors school. Rumor spread around the university that the two rivals had been awarded As in every one of their nine papers.

"I would be willing to believe that is the case," Philippa 34 ______ William. "But I feel I must point out to you that there is a considerable difference between an A-⁠plus and an A-⁠minus."

"I couldn't agree with you more," said William. "But 35 ______, when you discover who has won the Charles Oldham, you will know who was awarded less."

It turned 36 ______ that the examiners felt unable on this occasion to award the prize to one person and had therefore decided that it should be shared by William and Philippa.

In 1978 I was chairman of Cooper's, a company which ran 127 vehicles of various weights and sizes. We 30 ______ in transporting goods by road.

My father had founded the firm in 1931, starting out with three vehicles  — two of them driven by horses. By the time we became Cooper & Son in 1967, the company had 31 ______ in obtaining seventeen big trucks and delivered goods all over the north of England.

My father insisted that I leave school the moment I passed my О levels. "I'll teach you more about the real world in a month than you'd learn from any of those university types in a lifetime," he 32 ______ to say. I followed his advice and never 33 ______ it. I left school a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday. The next morning I joined Cooper's as an apprentice, and spent my first three years at the depot under the watchful eye of Buster Jackson, the works manager. He taught me how to take the company's trucks 34 ______ and, more important, how to put them back together again.

After graduating from the workshop, I spent five years in different departments. When my father retired in 1977  — at the age of seventy  — I took over as chairman. Then I began to set in motion some ideas I'd been working on for the past decade, 35 ______ I knew my father didn't approve of them. I never 36 ______ him, but Europe was only the beginning of my plans for the company s expansion.

Sir Alexander Heathcote was an exact man. 30 ______ people were like him. He was exactly six feet three-⁠and-⁠a-quarter inches tall, rose at seven o'clock every morning, joined his wife at breakfast to eat one boiled egg cooked for precisely four minutes, two pieces of toast with one spoonful of Cooper's marmalade, and drink one cup of China tea. He used to take a carriage from his home in Cadogan Gardens at exactly 8:20 and 31 ______ at the Foreign Office at promptly 8:59, returning home again on the stroke of six o'clock.

Sir Alexander had been exact from an early age, as he was the only son of a general. But, unlike his father, he chose to serve his queen in the diplomatic service, another exacting calling. He 32 ______ in progressing from a shared desk at the Foreign Office in Whitehall to third secretary in Calcutta to minister in Peking. He was delighted when Mr. Gladstone 33 ______ the opportunity to represent the government in China. For some time he had been 34 ______ in the art of the Ming dynasty. This appointment would present him a perfect chance of 35 ______ in their natural habitat some of the great statues, paintings and drawings he had previously been able to admire only in books.

When he arrived in Beijing, Her Imperial Highness wished him a successful term of office in his appointment and then the audience 36 ______ to an end.

Victor Rosenheim, an American banker, was Consuela's third husband. At first 30 ______ they looked happy. The gossip columns, however, were suggesting that the former Colombian model was already searching for the next husband. The Rosenheims flew into London from their home in New York. The purpose of their trip was twofold. There was always the chance that Mr. Rosenheim would take over a small merchant bank, while Mrs. Rosenheim intended to occupy her time looking 31 ______ a suitable birthday present  — for herself. 32 ______ people have been able to discover exactly which birthday Consuela would officially be celebrating.

After a sleepless night, Victor Rosenheim 33 ______ to get up early for an important meeting in the City, while Consuela remained in bed toying with her breakfast. After breakfast Consuela 34 ______ a couple of phone calls and then she disappeared into the bathroom.

Fifty minutes later she emerged from her suite dressed in a pink Chanel suit. She stepped out of the hotel and into the morning sun to begin her search for the birthday present.

She spent some time in Asprey's considering the latest slimline watches, a gold statue of a tiger with jade eyes and a Faberge egg. She 35 ______ that her close friend, Tina, was not with her, she needed her advice badly. From there she walked to a 36 ______ shop, which despite a determined salesman who showed her almost everything the shop had to offer, she still left empty-⁠handed.