Then my fingers had it. Just a touch of roughness on one side of the cards, as if a very fine needle had just pricked the veneer of the surface. They had only marked one side too, so sometimes the mark was on the left, sometimes on the right, and it was hard to tell.

‘You’re scowling,’ Captain Thomas said. ‘All well with you, Michael?’

‘I feel a bit…’ I said. I let my words slur slightly. ‘I will have to leave you after this game gentlemen, whatever the outcome. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘Surely!’ Bob said pleasantly. ‘I get weary this time of night myself. I know what you want lad! Some claret! Claret’s the thing for the early morning.’

They took my old glass of champagne away and brought a fresh one filled to the brim with the rich red wine. Will’s face was frozen.

While they were fussing with the wine I was quietly stacking the deck. I thought of Da. I thought of him in a new way – with a sort of rueful pride. He had played on upturned barrels for pennies yet he would have scorned to deal off the bottom like these fine cheats had done. Not him! When my da was sober and cheating he counted the number of hands to be played, the number of players and stacked the deck so the cards would fall as he wished to the players he wished. While they tasted the wine, and quarrelled as to whether it was cool enough, I counted swiftly in my mind, seven cards to each player, the second hand as I dealt it to be the strong one. Strong cards must occur every four cards at the right time for me to get them to Will who was sitting opposite me. Thus in the first deal there had to be a strong card at number 2, number 6, number 10, number 14, number 18, number 22, and number 26. I felt for the marked cards. I thought they had only marked Aces, Kings Queens and Jacks…there didn’t seem to be more than twenty-eight marked cards.

‘Ready, Michael?’ Bob said pleasantly. I shot him a quick look. He had not been watching me. He was smiling at Captain Thomas, an honest neutral smile, which passing between those two said, clear as a bell, ‘We have them now.’

I riffled the pack. It was stacked as well as I could do, in the time I had, and I was not in practice as I had been when I was Meridon.

I went to deal.

‘Cut,’ Captain Thomas reminded me.

I flushed. ‘Oh yes,’ I said.

They cut before they dealt in this club. Captain Thomas was waiting for me to cut my carefully stacked deck towards him so that the cards I had prepared for Will would be cut to the bottom of the deck where they would go at regular and surprising intervals to any one of us.