There was only standing room available when Dan entered the King’s Head, many of those who were having lunch being forced to balance plates upon beer glasses in order to free a hand with which to feed themselves. It therefore took Dan a certain amount of time and contortion to push his way to the bar. He tried to catch the attention of Martin, the landlord, but he was busy serving customers at the farthest end of the bar, so he turned his attention to Minty, the New Zealand girl who had been working in the pub for the past few months. She was serving a vociferous young businessman who had divested himself of his suit jacket to reveal a striking pair of red braces worn over a dark blue shirt with white starched cutaway collar. Dan thought how lucky he was that he no longer needed to wear the uniform of the City. He was much happier wearing his jeans and his leather jacket and his loafers. He had come to quite relish the fact that nobody could pigeonhole him into any one particular job.

He watched as the man leaned across the bar and talked to Minty in a drawling tone of self-assuredness that obviously implied that the barmaid could not help but find him outrageously attractive. As she handed the man his change, Minty beamed him a sweet smile, and then spied Dan.

“Hi, Dan,” she said, giving her hands a quick rinse in the basin under the counter and air-flicking them dry. “What can I get you?”

“Pint of Young’s, please, Minty.”

“Coming right up.”

Dan cast an eye around the thronging mass of people. “You haven’t seen Nick around, have you?”

Minty was about to answer when they both heard a sound that was quite alien to a busy London pub. Above the roaring cacophony of conversation came a short, gleeful scream that could only be produced by a seriously underaged drinker. It brought an instant hush as heads were turned to source the perpetrator’s whereabouts, but the interest was short-lived and the volume in the pub soon crescendoed once more. Dan, however, had no need to work out the origin of the sound. Only one person would be daft enough to bring a five-month-old baby into a smoke-filled pub, and he was sitting somewhere over by the cigarette machine.

Both he and Minty smiled knowingly at each other. “Okay,” Dan laughed. “I think I’ve got him.”