Gerald didn’t look like a head of IT – he was round and jolly with a shiny bald head and a luxuriant moustache that he appeared to have borrowed from a raffish uncle. He was no more capable than any other IT Head I’d ever met of preventing computer projects running hideously over time and over budget. He asked how I was and I told him I was fine.
'Looking forward to retirement?'
'I’m fifty- six, Gerald. My father lived to ninety-three.'
'Still ... no kids, no wife, thirty years on the clock. You must be minted.'
It wasn’t the money – money was just the chips. I might have had another forty years.
'I won’t starve.'
Gerald laughed. He said, 'So what are you going to do with yourself?'
'I thought I’d take up robbing banks.'
That’s what I’d been saying whenever people asked. That or drug-trafficking. Once I said I’d re-train as an assassin. Hiding in plain sight, I told myself. It seemed to work.
Gerald said, 'You don’t want to do that.'
'No?'
'There’s no money in banks these days. Internet fraud, that’s where it’s all at. Speaking of which .... '