‘I know that guy,’ said Hunter. ‘So, is it family money or did he invent something before the armour? What kind of a name is Marcel Qing, anyway? Are they Chinese?’

‘It’s a strange story,’ said Saul. ‘Marcel is ultra-French. He went to all the right schools, the Lycée Henri-IV, the École normale, wears black corduroy suits and round tortoiseshell glasses and complicated scarves – all of that – but his grandfather was the young Chinese cook to a French family in Shanghai. They fled when the Japs invaded Manchuria in ’thirty-three and took Marcel’s grandfather with them: they couldn’t face life without his General’s Chicken. He worked with them for five years in Paris, but then his employer sacked his mistress one day and she knew the thing that would piss him off the most would be to lose his cook, so she financed the grandfather’s first restaurant. By the time he died in the eighties, he had five great restaurants scattered around Paris. Out of respect for the old man, Marcel’s father waited until he was dead, then he froze Master Qing’s ancient, secret recipe for General’s Chicken and turned it into a supermarket staple.’

‘So, there’s no way he’s selling more than forty-nine per cent.’

‘It’ll depend on the manufacturing costs,’ said Saul. ‘He’s determined to prove to his father that he can make his own fortune in something more glamorous than frozen foods, but he may not have enough to build the factory and go into full production.’

‘Okay, got it. And what about John MacDonald? Can we buy him out and, if we can, do we want to?’

‘He’s at the other end of the spectrum,’ said Saul. ‘We could probably buy his company for the price of an abandoned crofter’s cottage. The trouble is that we’re a long way from any application, but the IP on fake life could be huge. On the other hand, if it turns out to be the model for life itself, we’ll be in Genome territory, where Clinton stopped Craig Venter from getting patents on genes and genetic structures: three hundred million down the drain. The government says it’s pro-business, but when it comes to the secrets of life, capitalism is left begging on the sidewalk outside the party.’