James Craig - Never Apologise, Never Explain

‘Stuart is an honorary member of the DoD. He’s my boyfriend.’

‘Lucky boy,’ Carlyle leered, looking the woman up and down. Thin, pasty-faced, wearing a red T-shirt and green combat pants, she could have been anywhere from eighteen to thirty-eight. It struck him that she looked like a weedy heroine from one of those wretched Mike Leigh movies that Helen sometimes made him watch; boring people pissing about masquerading as ‘social realism’.

The woman ignored his sarcastic tone. ‘Dismas was the Penitent Thief, a friend of Jesus.’

‘Good for him,’ Carlyle said, not having the remotest clue what she was talking about. Dismas could have been a character on Sesame Street for all he knew. Or Fulham’s new Hungarian left-back. He held out his right hand. ‘Give me the camera.’

The woman immediately lifted the machine back to her face and resumed filming. ‘We have a perfect right to be here. Are you arresting Clive?’

Carlyle glanced over at Joe, who was standing in the doorway trying not to laugh. Turning back to the woman, he said, ‘Give me the camera,’ as calmly as he could manage. ‘Please.’

Hemmed in by her boyfriend, the woman kicked Carlyle in the shin.

Instinctively, Carlyle kicked her back.

‘Ouch!’ she squealed. ‘That hurt!’

Without waiting for her to start screaming about ‘police brutality’, Carlyle grabbed the camera and quickly tossed it to Joe. ‘You are under arrest,’ he said, spinning her round and snapping on a pair of cuffs, ‘for breach of the peace and assaulting a police officer.’ He pointed at the boyfriend. ‘That goes for you too, Stuart.’

‘Boss,’ said Joe from behind him, ‘the uniforms are here.’

‘Good. Tell ’em to take these two and the driver back to the station and we’ll get them charged. And get someone out here to move this bloody bus.’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘What about my camera?’ the woman whined.

‘That’s evidence, love,’ said Joe, smiling. ‘But don’t worry — we’ll look after it.’

Today I write not to gloat. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.

Commander Carole Simpson dropped the letter on to her desk and sighed. Why her ‘genius’ fund manager husband had decided to write a ‘fuck you’ letter to the world in general and to his clients in particular, was beyond her. Simpson had never quite understood how her husband, Joshua Hunt, had transformed himself from the rather geeky Imperial College computer scientist that she had married into a financial guru with an estimated net worth — so she read in the papers — of almost?120 million. For a long time, she had taken comfort in the belief that the 4,000 square-foot house in Highgate, the expensive restaurants, the needy clients and the political networking had not turned Joshua into a completely different person, robbing her of what she had seen in him in the first place. Now, however, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe the money had finally gone to his head.

Joshua Hunt’s company, McGowan Capital, had run four of the best performing investment funds in London for each of the last six years. In the last two years, as the world’s financial markets had imploded, he had made an incredible 723 per cent return, mostly from betting against bank stocks and sterling. However, he had taken a beating in the last quarter, calling the oil market wrong, and was finding it harder and harder to convince his clients that this was not the time that they should be pulling out their money.

Sitting at the kitchen table a couple of weeks earlier, he had told her that he was shutting down the firm. He wanted to retire. Retire to what? He didn’t know. Still, that was fine by her — Joshua had never been the type of man who had allowed himself to be defined by his work. But now he had written this goodbye letter. That worried her. Glossing over recent losses, it smacked of hubris.

What I have learned about the investment business is that I hate it. I was in the game simply for the money. The low-hanging fruit — the idiots whose parents paid for public school and then the MBA — was there for the taking. These people were truly not worthy of everything they received as they rose effortlessly to the top of corporate and public life as if it was their right — which, of course, it was. All of this behaviour supporting the continuation of the Establishment, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless you all.

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.