Kearney said, “Look, hang on, I—”

He had turned round just in time to see Tate come up the steps from the suite, pause for a moment to look both ways, then cross the street and walk off at a rapid pace towards Gower Street. “Brian!” called Kearney. The phone picked up the tone of his voice and began squawking urgently at him. He broke the connection and ran after Tate, shouting, “Brian! It’s me!” and, “Brian, what the fuck’s going on?”

Tate showed no sign of hearing. He stuck his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. By now it was raining heavily. “Tate!” shouted Kearney. Tate looked over his shoulder, startled, then began to run. By the time they reached Bloomsbury Square, which was where Kearney caught up with him, they were both breathing heavily. Kearney grasped Tate by the shoulders of his grey snowboarder jacket and swung him round. Tate made a kind of sobbing gasp.

“Leave me alone,” he said, and stood there suddenly defeated with water pouring down his face.

Kearney let him go.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

Tate panted for a bit, then managed to say: “I’m sick of you.”

“What?”

“I’m sick of you. We were supposed to be in this together. But you’re never here, you never answer your phone, and now bloody Gordon wants to sell forty-nine percent of us to a merchant bank. I can’t deal with the financial side. I’m not supposed to have to. Where have you been for the last two weeks?”

Kearney gripped him by the forearms.

“Look at me,” he said. “It’s all right.” He made himself laugh. “Jesus, Brian,” he said. “You can be hard work.” Tate watched him angrily for a moment, then he laughed too.

“Look,” said Kearney, “let’s go to the Lymph Club and have a drink.”

But Tate wouldn’t let himself be won over that easily. He hated the Lymph Club, he said. Anyway he had work to do. “I suppose you could come back with me,” he suggested.

Kearney, permitting himself a smile, agreed that this would be the best thing.

The suite smelled of cats, stale food, Giraffe beer. “Most nights I’m sleeping on the floor,” Tate apologised. “I don’t get time to go home.” The cats were burrowing about in a litter of burger cartons at the base of his desk. Their heads went up when Kearney walked in. The male hurried up to him and fawned about at his feet, but the female only sat where she was, the light making a transparent corona out of her white fur, and waited for him to come to her. Kearney passed his hand over her sharp little head and laughed.

“What a house of prima donnas,” he told her.

Tate looked puzzled. “They’ve missed you,” he said. “But look here.”