Never Apologise, Never Explain - James Craig [51]
There are many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a credulous actor accepting a meaningless award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the people on the long, long list of those deserving thanks are almost certainly too stupid to appreciate who they are.
I will no longer manage money for other people. I have enough of my own. I am more than happy with my remuneration in exchange for ten prime years of my life. My message to the rest of you is: throw the BlackBerry away and enjoy life.
Goodbye and good luck.
Carole Simpson had no idea where all of this bile had come from. It seemed completely out of character. Deciding to walk away from the City with an obscene amount of money was one thing. Rubbing everyone else’s noses in it was quite another. Particularly as Joshua still had his political ambitions. If anything, they seemed to be growing. She fretted that this farewell message would come back to haunt him. It was juvenile. Biting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea.
The letter had yet to be posted to investors or published on McGowan Capital’s website, so maybe she could talk him out of it at tonight’s reception. Drinks followed by dinner. Another evening lost to playing the dutiful wife, as if she didn’t have a career of her own. The heavy card invite lay on her desk. Glancing at it, Simpson calculated that she would have to leave in about fifteen minutes. That would be more than enough time.
Picking up the telephone, she punched a button and waited for her PA in the room next door to answer. ‘Send him in,’ she said briskly, immediately dropping the receiver back on to its cradle, without waiting for a response.
The office door opened. Simpson watched Carlyle come in and stand in front of her desk. Another man who’s causing me needless aggravation, she thought. Letting him wait there for a few seconds, she looked him up and down, on the off-chance that she might find some new insight into her under-achieving – if sporadically impressive – colleague. There was none to be found.
Scribbling some notes on a pad, she instructed him to sit down with a curt wave of the hand. ‘How are you, Inspector?’ she said finally.
‘Fine.’ Carlyle sat upright in his chair, as if he was back in the Headmaster’s office at the Henry Compton secondary school, thirty years ago, waiting to take his punishment for some minor indiscretion. Unwilling to engage in any fake pleasantries, he kept his response to the one word, and let his gaze wander. Nothing here seemed different from his last visit. Aside from the basics, the office was empty, the desk spectacularly bare save for a photograph of a smug-looking middle-aged man gone to seed. Carlyle assumed that was Simpson’s husband.
The inspector was always on his guard with his boss. They were very different animals and both knew it. Five or six years younger than Carlyle, the commander could still realistically anticipate moving further up the career ladder before her time was up. He had known Simpson for almost twelve years now, coming under her direction not long after his move to Charing Cross. She was, he had to admit, a hell of an operator – she only ever looked upwards – and had taken to her management role like a duck to water. She could be charming too – if you were a man of a certain age (i.e. between ten and fifteen years older than she was) and she wanted something from you.
Simpson rarely wanted anything from Inspector John Carlyle. The inspector knew that she was frustrated by what she saw as his refusal to play the game. Just as important, perhaps more so, was his inability to hide his feelings towards her. Simpson left Carlyle cold. He hated the feeling that he had been co-opted on to her mission for personal glory.