‘I see you’ve been talking to the Renaissance Man,’ said Tom in a dry gravelly voice. ‘How are you, Ballantine? Been keeping Mr Melrose up to date on your achievements?’

‘Well, I thought he might be interested in the guns,’ said Ballantine peevishly.

‘The thought he never has, is that somebody might not be interested in the guns,’ Tom croaked. ‘I was sorry to hear about your father, I guess you must be feeling sick at heart.’

‘I suppose I am,’ said Patrick, caught off balance. ‘It’s a terrible time for anybody. Whatever you feel, you feel it strongly, and you feel just about everything.’

‘Do you want a drink, or do you want to go straight in to lunch?’ asked George.

‘Let’s eat,’ said Tom.

The four men got up. Patrick noticed that the two Bullshots had made him feel much more substantial. He could also detect the steady lucid throb of the speed. Perhaps he could allow himself a quick fix before lunch.

‘Where are the loos, George?’

‘Oh, just through that door in the corner,’ said George. ‘We’ll be in the dining room, up the stairs on the right.’

‘I’ll see you there.’

Patrick broke away from the group and headed for the door that George had pointed out. On the other side he found a large cool room of black and white marble, shiny chrome fittings, and mahogany doors. At one end of a row of basins was a pile of starched linen with ‘Key Club’ sewn into the corner in green cotton, and, beside it, a large wicker basket for discarding the used towels.

With sudden efficiency and stealth, he picked up a towel, filled a glass with water, and slipped into one of the mahogany cubicles.

There was no time to waste and Patrick seemed to put the glass down, drop the towel, and take off his jacket in one gesture.

He sat on the loo seat and put the syringe carefully on the towel in his lap. He rolled his sleeve up tightly on his bicep to act as a makeshift tourniquet and, while he frantically clenched and unclenched his fist, removed the cap of the syringe with the thumb of his other hand.

His veins were becoming quite shy, but a lucky stab in the bicep, just below his rolled-up sleeve, yielded the gratifying spectacle of a red mushroom cloud uncurling in the barrel of the syringe.

He pushed the plunger down hard and unrolled his shirt as fast as he could to allow the solution a free passage through his bloodstream.

Patrick wiped the trickle of blood from his arm and flushed out the syringe, also squirting its pinkish water into the towel.