She knew what kind of people came. They were his set: the all-male network that he and others of his ilk had created at university, in the City, in private clubs, in various capitals, to trade information, or to start rumors, or to import and export insider knowledge. Girls came too, for the after-parties, lots of them, paid well she imagined—and the dealers in mood- and sexual-performance enhancers came too. Shady, sinister characters from an underworld she could barely imagine.

On the nights Marcus didn’t come home she guessed someone else was hosting proceedings at their luxury apartment or town house. She never asked, and he never told her, but she’d come to recognize a descent from the drug-fueled highs when it was in front of her.

There were other nights—lots of them—when he behaved like a regular family man, sober, a little tired, but happy and feeling generous at the end of a long, productive day. She could easily mistake him then for the man who’d comforted and befriended her after the tragedy of her first husband’s death. She still felt strangely attached to that man and the way he’d spoken so softly to her during that terrible time, and had smiled into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe how fortunate he was to have found her. He’d never been frightening then, just loving, attentive, interested. She’d married him believing he loved her, and feeling certain it was the right thing to do for her—and for her eleven-year-old daughter who’d been devastated by the loss of her father.

Now here they were, or here she was, watching him frantically snatching files from his desk and stuffing them into an old-fashioned attaché case. She hadn’t seen it before.

“For Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there,” he raged, “get that cabinet away from the wall.”

Quickly she moved to do as she was told, but the cabinet was too heavy.

He shoved her aside and did it himself, grunting, sweating, swearing . . . Was he crying? Or were those beads of sweat? How much did she care? How afraid was she?

She wasn’t surprised to see the safe behind the cabinet. She’d known it was there, but this was the first time he’d opened it in front of her, pressing the numbers in slowly, deliberately, not wanting to waste time on mistakes.

She couldn’t calculate how much cash was stacked on the five shelves inside, but it surely ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds, all the bills neatly bundled until they were chaotically rammed into the case along with the files. Too much to fit in, but he was going to make it happen . . .

Someone knocked at the front door. Three heavy raps.