He stood in front of
the mirror one last time and looked at himself.
The Luigi Borrelli
shirt @ $450. Check.
The Charvet silk tie @
$185. Check.
The Gucci ostrich skin
belt @ $325. Check
The Giorgio Armani suit
@ $1600. Check.
The John Lobb leather
Oxfords @ $655. Check
He sighed and put his
hand into his pocket. This is how he wanted to go. This is how he had always
envisioned going. His last picture in the tabloids would be his most expensive
one.
Beads of sweat started
to appear on his forehead as he groped in his pocket for that last finishing
touch. He hadn't sweated since the first time he had walked into a boardroom 23
years ago. But today about to negotiate the final deal of his life he was
sweating again.
His fingers finally
found what they were searching for.
He pulled out a
crumpled photograph that had more creases than his tormented and ageing soul. He
stared into the photograph and gently ran his palm over it.
He closed his eyes and
tried to ignore the buzzing in his ears, the pounding of blood against his temple,
the thudding of his heart against his rib cage and the cascade of tears that
was fast rushing from the depths of his body to his eyes.
The noise was
unbearable.
Thinking of the only
person he had ever loved truly, he tightened his clutch and crumpled the
photograph further. It didn't matter now for the image was now firmly imprinted.
Just then through the
myriad cacophony of sounds came a new one. Someone was pounding on his door.
The door opened and in
walked a man clad in the Royal Blue of the British Police.
“Sir, it’s time.”
He looked at him and
let out a sigh. Then he looked at the mirror one last time and walked out into
the light.
Sixty miles away and
sixteen hours later in Kent, a housewife stepped out onto her front porch and
picked up The Daily Telegraph. She knew what the front page would carry yet she
opened it out wide and looked at the picture of her impeccably dressed husband
staring back at her. His eyes stared at her for perhaps the first time in along
time. After all there wasn't a cellphone in sight.
She walked back into
the house and her eyes’ attention was caught by the framed picture in the
hallway – a picture of her husband carrying their 6-year old daughter in his
arms. A single tear rolled down her cheek and yet the emotion in her eyes that
reflected from the laminated picture was that of pride.
In the 16 years that she had known her husband,
all that he had cared about was money and had spent his entire life cooped up
in his cellphone trying to make more and more.
Yet today the headlines
screamed “Stockbroker hanged for brutally murdering daughter’s rapists”
Finally he had cared
about something other than money.
Finally the emotion induced
was pride. Priceless.
