Page 59 of Love and Loathing

“I told you before, Aubrey, that you’d have time for scruples once you’d done the job I’m paying you for. Instead they seem to be increasingly hindering your use to me. Is this my daughter whispering in your ear? Getting you under her mawkish, tear-stained thumb? I thought you of all people would be immune to her hysterical whimperings. You’re a grown man. Act like one.”

Aubrey looked down at the glossy wood of George’s desk, using every shred of control he possessed to wrestle his black fury into something cool and hard.

“Perhaps Evie has influenced me,” he said, voice deceptively light. “But I can’t help but think that everything you’re currently doing is also a reaction.”

“To what?” George asked coldly.

“To Roscoe leaving. To the fact the beloved son you raised to take your place can’t even stand to be in the same building as you.”

George sat forward in his seat, reddening, furious, but Aubrey didn’t let him speak.

“Would you have taken this department in the same direction if he had still been here, at its head? Would you have risked him to the regulators? Or is this pathetic, grubby pursuit of Domnall and his chequebook, this macho, posturing bullshit and self-destructive flirtation with petty crime… Is all of this the reaction of an impotent, middle-aged man realising he’s powerless? That he can’t bully his children anymore? Realising that his entire family hates him?”

He leant his hands on the desk and looked George in the eye.

“You don’t deserve to have Evie in your life. I hope she abandons you just like Roscoe has. I hope she never sits at your dinner table again, letting you starve her. Your dirty money can keep you company in your old age, George. I won’t help you make any more of it.”

He left to go and pack his things and found Liv sitting at his desk.

TWENTY-FOUR

“You’ve been a busyboy,” Liv said, leaning back in his office chair, smiling at him as she twisted it side to side. “Domnall’s very pleased.”

“Get out of here, Liv. I’m not in the mood.”

His mind was oddly blank, as though he was watching it from afar, couldn’t hear what was happening inside it. The death of another career, he supposed. Starting again at nearly thirty-five. George would ensure his name was mud. He knew the man well enough to know he would punish him tenfold for every word he’d just said.

Liv got up and came over to where he stood by his desk. She leant against the edge of it, still smiling while he stood there blankly, staring at the possessions on his desk as though he’d never seen them before.

He ought to find a box. He ought to leave everything, touch nothing. He ought to make a copy of his industry contact lists. Surely there was someone he knew who would give him a chance?

“Trouble in paradise?” Liv asked.

She put a caressing hand on his arm and he pulled his sleeve away, going around to sit at his desk, finding the computer unlocked, his emails still open. On autopilot, he started to make copies of anything that might be useful.

Liv watched him, more serious now, no longer smiling. “Something is wrong, isn’t it? We could get a coffee. Talk about it.”

“There’s no one in the world I’d rather talk to less.”

“We’re still friends, Aubrey. Sixteen years doesn’t just disappear.”

He gave her a disbelieving look. “Are you mad? We’ve never been friends. Even when we were together, you were never my friend. Do you even know what the word means? You’re a back-stabbing manipulator. A user and a liar.”

She gave a breath of laughter. “You weren’t joking about being in a bad mood.”

“Please go away.”

He didn’t hear her reply, his attention caught by a new email. It was from HR.Immediate notice of termination of employment contract.Two week’s pay, how generous. And a lengthy settlement agreement. He scanned it quickly. A gagging clause, preventing him from discussing his work here with any individual or new employer. And a non-compete clause, restricting him from working for any competitors. Standard stuff. Possibly not enforceable. He’d have to speak to a lawyer.

He laughed darkly to himself, opening his desk drawer and taking out his favourite pens, his leather notepad. He got up, put them in his laptop case but left the laptop itself on his desk. It belonged to BlacktonGold.

“Going somewhere?” Liv asked as he pocketed his phone—that at least belonged to him.

“Hot date.”

“With Evie, I presume.”

No, at the job centre.

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