There was a time when the money men were Americans. There were a few Brits, but most were Americans whose names still ricochet across the ages: Buffett, Gates, Koch, Rockefeller and Trump. Now the money includes Arabs. I’ve seen the change. Sports cars tearing up Knightsbridge. Rolls-Royces in Mayfair. Their wealth is so great that it confers anonymity – the ability to move through the world behind privacy glass and high gates. To those that want to flaunt their wealth, the Louis Vuitton, Armani, Rolex, Cartier ensure that if they want they too can be anonymous by all looking the same. You couldn’t pick a single one of them out of a line-up. I remember those designers from my days in the City. But I never understood fashion.

Enough money and you could disappear.

Enough money can make whole streets disappear.

Ebadi, whoever he is, has enough to give him access to these roads. To park his car, to hold his parties, here in Mayfair.

Money.

I think about the money. Until we had that Chinese it hadn’t crossed my mind for years.

1989.

I try to retrace the path but there are wide gaps in my memory of it. It has been almost thirty years since she left London. Thirty years since I have seen her or heard her voice. I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know where she might be. Maybe I should ask Seb about her after all. Maybe even meet her again once more. Nina will know where she is even if Seb has lost touch with her.

One of the last times I saw her was in the house she had been renting north of the river after she left me. Her belongings were still in boxes mostly. A few had been opened and a loose frying pan or a dinner plate had been poached from here or there. A jade Buddha was on the mantel. Even after all this, a jade Buddha smiling vindictively. She seemed surprised to see me but let me in once the hesitation had passed.

‘So. It looks pretty permanent. This move,’ I said, brushing past her and looking around the living room cum kitchen.

‘It is, Xander. For us, I mean,’ she said, following me.

‘I don’t understand why it has to be. What was so wrong that we can’t get past it?’ I said, and even as the words left my mouth the sound they made me shrink.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say. We’ve grown apart,’ she said, crossing her arms.

Seeing her things here like this, things I recognised and felt were a part of us, gave me a jolt. ‘I just don’t understand that, Mabe. I haven’t grown apart,’ I said. I leaned against a wall to give her room to pass.