The board dining room was on the same floor, and to get there you had to pass Alma’s desk. Alma gave Tony Tolomei a broad smile.

“Thanks for last time, Tony!”

“Don’t mention it, Alma. Who knows, perhaps we’ll do it again sometime?”

And Alma rewarded him with a rare treat: a deep, purring laugh.

Tony left his briefcase and phone with Alma and went through the dark wooden doors.

A couple of the other directors were standing in the lobby, and their conversation stopped when Tony Tolomei entered.

“So, this is your last last-Friday lunch,” Savage, the HR director, greeted him.

Tony Tolomei liked people. Most of them he liked immediately, without hesitation. Over the past few months, however, he had begun looking around him with new eyes and had realised that John Eugene Savage was an arrogant prick.

“It is. Next time you’ll need one plate fewer.”

“I’m sure the CFO will be delighted!”

Tony Tolomei estimated that next year the bonus of that arsehole would be three to five million higher than it was this year.

“Tony, retirement ahead of you now!” The property director, Bennett, caught Tony Tolomei by surprise from behind. “How old were you when you started at AIIT-Royal?”

“I was nineteen. It’ll be fifty-seven years, one month and one week.”

Bennett furrowed his brow.

“Well, I suppose you must be looking forward to retirement, then. Are you staying in the city, or moving to the country?”

“Maybe I’ll run away and join the circus!”

Malcolm Earl Bennett laughed, his belly jiggling over his belt, and remembered that remark for the rest of his life.

Although the room could have accommodated sixty people, a buffet had now been laid out for the twelve members of the board. Tony Tolomei was greeted with friendly gestures, smiles, and pats on the shoulder.

He thought of the Ides of March.

Prevon, the Chief Technology Officer, smiled like a drunken monk, ruddy-faced and smug. Tony Tolomei calculated that Prevon would make a little over ten million from the redistribution of his bonuses. Prevon pumped his hand vigorously, as though trying to beat a catfish to death with it.

Lewis, the head of domestic sales. Although Lewis was perhaps the smartest man in the building, Tony Tolomei knew that this man, not he, was really responsible for the decline in sales.

Lewis was intelligent but tired and old-fashioned, despite being fifteen years younger than Tony. Tony Tolomei calculated that Lewis would benefit from his removal by nearly nine million.

The CEO, Nick Key, looked older than his years, dignified and thoughtful. In nine years he had worked miracles. Although the last two years had not gone quite to plan, profits had grown astonishingly. Tony Tolomei could not help liking the man, even though, viewed analytically, Nick Key was prepared to betray anyone in pursuit of his goals.

Tony Tolomei looked at his own reflection in the polished marble of the wall.

He was part of this.

He had never voted against the CEO. Every piece of skulduggery, every backstabbing and betrayal Nick Key had proposed had received his blessing.

The younger directors were like a strange congregation of priests, performing a ceremony that required them to pat the eldest man in the temple on the shoulder.