A heartwarming story of Christmas blackmail

I thought you might enjoy a little parable for Christmas, so here goes…

The boardroom clock said twelve minutes to one. A waft of gravy in the air indicated that Christmas lunch awaited in an adjacent room. One agenda item to go: Colin the company secretary made a throat-cutting gesture to Kevin from health and safety, who had exceeded his allotted time for a presentation on disposal of toxic waste from Indonesian supplier factories. Coming after Maureen the HR director’s Powerpoint on ‘issues around diversity’, this had entirely lost the attention of the board, most of whom, Colin observed, were fiddling with their phones under the table.

Except for the chairman, George, and the chief executive — a Dutchman whose name no one could pronounce. The latter was doodling, in comicbook numerals, a seven-digit sum with a pound sign. After a glance at his laptop, he had crossed out his first number and replaced it with a bigger one.