I opened the wrong door on the fiftieth floor and saw what the most powerful woman in the company had been hiding — the next morning she put eighty-five thousand dollars on the desk.

And she said: “That clears everything in that folder. It puts you somewhere decent and it buys your daughter a private respiratory consultant.”

I said something like — what do you want. I said if it’s about last night I’d never say a word anyway.

And Margo Thale smiled in a way that had nothing in it and said:

“I don’t need a silent cleaner. I’ve read your file. Somebody in my own family is trying to destroy me. I need a pawn, a shield, and a flawless performance.”

And then she told me what the performance was.

Her nephew, Lars Thale, is thirty-four and Chief Strategy Officer. He is her late brother’s son and he has been at Kelvedon since 2016.

Article 41.3 of the company’s articles: if two independent physicians certify that the Chief Executive is unable to discharge the functions of the office, the board may remove her by ordinary resolution, without notice, and her deferred equity is forfeited.