A sensation began to form in his abdomen, one that he hadn’t felt for a very long time. He asked her to go to the computer in his office and check when it was last logged on to. She was the only person who was allowed to touch it.

‘What’s the password this week, sir?’ she asked.

He blushed, though she couldn’t see it. ‘Peasants.’ He recalled crying the word out loud to Miranda as he came inside her, unable to keep the magnificent sense of power and domination from his voice. He changed his password from time to time, but he kept going back to that one; it held a resonance for him that he found hard to explain. He’d come from nothing and made himself what he was today, unlike ninety-nine per cent of the population, who sponged off everyone else.

‘Right, sir… You last logged on at six fifteen yesterday evening. Wait a minute, nobody was here then.’

‘I know I wasn’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘What time did you leave?’ he asked.

‘Six o’clock, sir.’

‘Bitch.’

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘Nothing.’ He hung up.

Suddenly the view of the ancient waterway wasn’t so appealing. He went inside and closed the door, gulping his wine as he went. Miranda was nothing if not technically competent. It had to have been her, but why? Revenge, of course.

He placed a call to his firm of solicitors and instructed them to release the original terms of Alan Montague-Roland’s will to the police.

As he paced up and down, Christopher’s words popped into his head. He racked his brains, trying to recall what he’d stored on his hard drive. In a word: everything. If Miranda had done what he thought she had, he was screwed.

He logged on to a personal iPad and searched BA flights to Buenos Aires. He had business dealings there, but more importantly, he owned a pad in Mar del Plata. Extradition from South America was unlikely. He placed the glass on the side and rubbed his eyes; he couldn’t believe he was thinking like this.

There was a flight at 9.50 p.m. from Heathrow, but it was delayed by half an hour; he could still make it. The screen showed that there were several spare seats in business class. He purchased a return ticket – it was quicker – and went to his bedroom to pack. Everything he needed was in the flat. As he opened his suitcase, he ran through calculations in his head about what sums he had in which country, and how easily they were accessed. He thought about Miranda rooting around in his office, smiling to herself when she guessed his password correctly. It was she who’d encrypted all his files and created the bulletproof system, which was why he’d used his work computer to store it all on.