And Thereby Hangs a Tale

“Good morning, Chairman,” said Rod, the young man standing behind the reception desk.

The chairman walked straight past without acknowledging him and headed toward a lift that had just opened. A group of people who’d been expecting to take it stood aside. None of them would have considered sharing a lift with the chairman, not if they wanted to keep their jobs.

The lift whisked him up to the top floor and he marched into his office. Four separate piles of market reports, telephone messages, press clippings, and e-mails had been placed neatly on his desk by his secretary, but today they could wait. He checked his diary, although he knew he didn’t have any appointments before his check-up with the company’s doctor at twelve o’clock.

He walked across to the window and looked out over the City. The Bank of England, the Guildhall, the Tower, Lloyd’s of London, and St. Paul’s dominated the skyline. But his bank, the bank he’d built up to such prominence over the past thirty years, looked down on all of them, and now they wanted to take it away from him.

There had been rumors circulating in the City for some time. Not everyone approved of his methods, or some of the tactics he resorted to just before closing a deal. “Brings the very reputation of the City into question,” one of his directors had dared to suggest at a recent board meeting. The chairman had made sure the man was replaced a few weeks later, but his departure had caused even more unease not only among the rest of the board but also as far as the inner reaches of Threadneedle Street.

Perhaps he’d bent the rules a little over the years, possibly a few people had suffered on the way, but the bank had thrived and those who’d remained loyal to him had benefited, while he had built one of the largest personal fortunes in the City.

The chairman was well aware that some of his colleagues hoped he would retire on his sixtieth birthday, but they didn’t have the guts to put the knife in and hasten his departure. At least, not until a story appeared in one of the gossip columns hinting

that he’d been seen paying regular visits to a clinic in Harley Street. They still didn’t make a move until the same story appeared on the front page of the Financial Times.

When the chairman was asked at the next board meeting to confirm or deny the reports, he procrastinated, but one of his colleagues, someone he should have got rid of years ago, called his bluff and insisted on an independent medical report so that the rumors could be scotched. The chairman called for a vote and didn’t get the result he’d anticipated. The board decided by eleven votes to nine that the company’s doctor, not the chairman’s personal physician, should carry out a full medical examination and make his findings known to the board. The chairman knew it would be pointless to protest. It was exactly the same procedure he insisted on for all his staff when they had their annual check-ups. In fact, over the years, he’d found it a convenient way to rid himself of any incompetent or overzealous executives who’d dared to question his judgment. Now they intended to use the same tactic to get rid of him.

The company’s doctor was not a man who could be bought, so the board would find out the truth. He had cancer, and although his personal physician said he could live for another two years, possibly three, he knew that once the medical report was made public, the bank’s shares would collapse, with no hope of recovering until he’d resigned and a new chairman had been appointed in his place.

He’d known for some time that he was dying, but he’d always beaten the odds in the past, often at the last moment, and he believed he could do it once again. He’d have given anything, anything for a second chance . . .

“Anything?” said a voice from behind him.

The chairman continued to stare out of the window, as no one was allowed to enter his office without an appointment, even the deputy chairman. Then he heard the voice again. “Anything?” it repeated.

He swung round to see a man dressed in a smartly tailored dark suit, white silk shirt, and thin black tie.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Mr. De Ath,” the man said, “and I represent a lower authority.”

“How did you get into my office?”

“Your secretary can’t see or hear me.”

“Get out, before I call security,” said the chairman, pressing a button under his desk several times.

A moment later the door opened and his secretary came rushing in. “You called, Chairman?” she said, a notepad open in her hand, a pen poised.

“I want to know how this man got into my office without an appointment,” he said, pointing at the intruder.

“You don’t have any appointments this morning, Chairman,” said his secretary, looking uncertainly round the room, “other than with the company doctor at twelve o’clock.”

“As I told you,” said Mr. De Ath, “she can’t see or hear me. I can only be seen by those approaching death.”

The chairman looked at his secretary and said sharply, “I don’t want to be disturbed again unless I call.”

“Of course, Chairman,” she said and quickly left the room.

“Now that we’ve established my credentials,” said Mr. De Ath, “allow me to ask you again. When you said you’d do anything to be given a second chance, did you mean anything?”

“Even if I did say it, we both know that’s impossible.”

“For me, anything is possible. After all, that’s how I knew what you were thinking at the time, and at this very moment I know you’re asking yourself, ‘Is he for real? And if he is, have I found a way out?’”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s my job. I visit those who’ll do anything to be given a second chance. In Hell, we take the long view.”