So, slowly, haltingly, with many gulps and pauses, he told it again. All the while, Ollie slouched back, not saying a word, arm casually resting on the back of his chair, the picture of relaxation. But his eyes stayed fixed on Albert, unblinking, from start to finish. Albert went through the whole story, again, but neither Ollie nor June said anything. Finally he was done and there was silence in the room. Ollie sat there, thoughtfully stroking his chin. His face was inscrutable, still as steel.

‘That’s quite a story. And you told it twice, but not too well either time. Makes me think you didn’t just learn it up.’

He stared at Albert for a moment, then his face cracked into a smile, and the room filled with the rich, throaty sound of a huge man chuckling. The jolly raconteur was back.

‘Quite the story,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, I’d have loved to have seen Fatface when Bosquanet buzzed him!’

He stopped laughing long enough to wink at Albert again. ‘Old Boskie must be bored stiff, to take the time out to get involved with some little petition. Why do you think she’d be doing that, now?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Albert.

‘Well, neither do I. But then, I suppose destroying everyone’s life gets as dry as anything else after a decade or two, don’t you?’

He turned to June, who had slipped into the chair on his left and had sat there silently throughout Albert’s monologue. ‘He’s a right ’un, you’d say?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Oh, I think he is.’

She glanced at Albert. ‘Then I think I agree.’

‘But, right ’un or not, he can’t stay here.’

The words were unsettling enough, but this time it was the tone that caught him off guard. It was quiet, controlled and expressionless, not a trace of the free-flowing joie de vivre it had been immersed in only a few seconds earlier. Yet again the bluff buffoon had disappeared.

June nodded. ‘All right.’

‘So there’s nothing for it. We’ll just have to take him to Father.’

Albert could see her stiffening, the hand which lay on the table tightening as she clenched her fist. Her eyes narrowed. When she spoke, though, her voice was soft and sweet. Perhaps, Albert reflected, a little too sweet. ‘Oliver, may I have a word with you, please?’

‘Now, don’t call me Oliver,’ begged the fat man. ‘You always do that when you’re angry.’

‘I just think I should like a word with you now.’

‘Well, what’s it about anyway? Because I used the F-word?’

June breathed heavily. ‘Ollie—’

Ollie turned to Albert, a look of fear on his face that was more comical than genuine. ‘It is because I used the F-word,’ he said mournfully. ‘She doesn’t like people using the F—’

‘Ollie, do you think this is funny?’