Bermuda was a regular bolthole, the ideal place to let off steam and get some serious work done without the nagging irritations of his office. The house belonged to a friend, of course, but he was at liberty to use it any time. His first-class airline tickets were also the product of a long-standing bond between old buddies here at the club. Philip’s basic salary was a modest million, before benefits, of course, but there were members here whose money couldn’t be counted. And it was never discussed. Friends helped one another, that was all. And that was why he was here.

The members of the Cambridge rowing alumni association ranged in age from twenty-nine to eighty-two, and they met once a year to do what boys did best: smoke cigars, catch up, and perhaps gain a few more contacts. Of course, there were fabulous female rowers too, but this club was exclusively male, and mostly white.

Straight away he spotted a few old chums walking up the grand staircase to their private room, and they shook hands and exchanged pleasantries, chatting about wives, children, jobs and the weather. The serious stuff would come later, over port and cheese. Handshakes and booming exclamations rattled through the marble halls, and the portraits of ancient members stared down at them, listening in, still attendant to the festivity. Apparently Churchill used to play here as a little boy, when he lived across the square, and his impressive likeness cast its eye over them with gloriously rotund approval.

Philip carried very little with him; he was in what the military members called ‘fighting order’: a credit card, his yellow original Café Crèmes, a lighter and his room key. The men were distinguishable only by the colour of their hair or the thinness on top; otherwise, they formed a steady stream of dinner-jacketed gentlemen with highly polished shoes, hands in pockets and healthy belly laughs, snaking towards the dining room that awaited them. There would be speeches, and acknowledgements of members no longer with them but not forgotten. The older portion would trail off around midnight, with a few diehards propping up the private bar until the early hours, brandy in hand, money and politics in mind. Most of the attendees lived in or around London, employed either by banks or government offices, but a sizeable number travelled there for the weekend, enjoying the club’s hospitality and catching up with old friends.

The dining room glowed softly, lamplight warming the claret walls and bouncing off silver and crystal. It was a good turnout, with over a hundred expected, and the bar was busy and loud. Philip lost the men he’d walked in with and greeted other alumni on his way to the bar. Around twenty of those attending tonight were Montague Club members like himself, including the man who approached him from the other side of the room.