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‘No, he doesn't.’ Mr Ambrose shook his head.
We turned a corner and suddenly stood before the door into the main hall again. There Mr Ambrose waited till we had caught up with him. He stood, silent and still as a statue, facing the door as if he could see images there that were invisible to anybody else. We stepped up beside him, but still he didn’t move. Karim, who obviously - unlike me - didn’t have the intention of arguing with his master any more, felt the need to change the subject. He cleared his throat and asked: ‘Should I buy a ticket for Mr Simmons, Sahib?’
Mr Ambrose twitched, seeming to awake from a trance.
‘What did you say?’
‘The ticket for Mr Simmons. The train ticket out of London. Should I buy it and give it to him when he leaves the building?’
There was one more moment of silence. Then Mr Ambrose shook his head. ‘He will be dead within a day of leaving this building,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Corpses need no tickets.’
I paled and stared at him, wide-eyed.
‘D-dead?’ I stuttered. ‘But you said…’
‘Oh, I won’t kill him.’ He turned to look at me. There was a slightly different set to his mouth. If I didn’t know that he didn’t have such a thing as facial expressions, I would almost have said he looked… grim. ‘I won’t need to. He told me the name of his employer.’
‘And?’
‘And I know the man. Once he leaves this building, Simmons has only hours to live.’ He turned again and opened the door. ‘So you see, there’s no reason to waste perfectly good money.’
Dysfunctional Dismissal
Hours to live. He has only hours to live.
The sentence, so calmly spoken, was still echoing through my mind while I followed Mr Ambrose up the stairs and through the hallway. I barely noticed Mr Stone’s greeting in time to return it.
Hours to live. Only hours.
Should somebody warn Simmons? Shouldn’t Mr Ambrose? But I saw that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to kill Simmons for what the man had done, but neither was he going to lift a finger to preserve his life. I knew that from looking at his face alone.
‘Mr Linton?’ Mr Ambrose’s calm and cool voice startled me from my thoughts. ‘Step into my office for a minute. There is a business matter I wish to discuss with you.’
A business matter? Now? What about the fellow you’re setting up to have his throat slit?
‘Of course, Sir.’ Rolling my eyes, I followed him into his office. I should have guessed this was going to happen, of course.
Knowledge is power is time is money, right?
So we find out who has stolen this incredibly important document. What do we do next? Take a day off to celebrate? No, not with Mr Ambrose. There’s a ‘business matter’ to take care of. And after that, probably another. And another.
I wondered what we were going to do. Start tracking this man down, whose name Mr Ambrose wouldn’t divulge? But then, what did he need me for? I could hardly look for somebody whose name I didn’t know. Not even with a sack full of onions was I that good.
Mr Ambrose sat down behind his desk. I sat down directly opposite him in the visitor’s chair. Yet instead of cutting to the chase in his usual manner, he started arranging all the papers on the desk into neat piles.
What the heck was going on? Was Mr Ambrose, Mr Save-time-or-die Ambrose, actually stalling? In other words, wasting precious moments that could be transformed into money?
He was. Something was seriously wrong here. I bit my tongue to suppress the urge to ask. Only when the last piece of paper was where it was supposed to be did Mr Ambrose finally look up.
‘You will be leaving in an hour. Stone will pay you for your services rendered so far and order a cab for you to take you home.’
I frowned. What was this?
‘I… I do not understand.’
‘It is very simple. Our employer-employee relationship is hereby terminated. You will receive a note of dismissal at my earliest convenience. Good day, Mr Linton. Do not let me detain you.’
He looked down again and started to read one of the files in front of him as if I weren’t there anymore. It took me a few seconds to get it. To fully appreciate what he had just done. When I did, my hands clenched into fists.
‘You… you’re dismissing me?’
‘Indeed I am. Or rather, I already have.’ Slowly, he looked up again, fixing me with his dark gaze. ‘It would appear that you are still present. Perhaps you didn’t understand me. You are dismissed. Which means you can leave. Now.’
‘Why?’ I felt bloody moisture in my eyes. No, no! I was not going to cry in front of him! I was not going to prove right every single prejudice he had about girls, there and then. I was not an overly emotional, silly female! I wasn’t! I wasn’t! ‘Why are you doing this? What have I done wrong?’
He cocked his head minutely. ‘Wrong?’
‘Bloody hell! Isn’t it sort of a rule that an employee can only be dismissed if they’ve done something wrong? What did I do? Didn’t I carry your files fast enough? Didn’t I dress male enough for you? Did I breathe too loud? Tell me, blast, what did I do?’
He shook his head, but his eyes didn’t go with the movement. They remained fixed on me. His gaze was disturbing. I had never met a man filled with so much silent concentration.
‘You don't understand, Mr Linton. You didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘What?’ I blinked the moisture out of my eyes before it could spill over. ‘Then what is the matter? Why are you trying to get rid of me?’
‘Don’t you see?’ His hands on the desk curled up into fists. I could see that behind his calm exterior a storm was brewing. But I wouldn’t be put off by that. I couldn’t leave this job! Not now of all times. Not now that he was in trouble and up against someone dangerous!
And since when have you started worrying about what he’s up against? Haven’t you got enough problems of your own?
No, I didn’t. Problems were fun. Problems were adventure. Besides, I’d be damned if I left before I got my first pay cheque out of that miser!
That miser was just now staring at me as if he’d like to strangle me instead of pay me. In a very low, controlled voice he said: ‘Mr Linton… I’m no run-of-the-mill businessman who sells tin cans at the market. I have my own empire and consequently must deal with my own espionage and fight my own wars, Mr Linton. Right now, a war is coming.’