While he is scuttling across Austria in the dead of night, his mouth furred, a migraine developing ominously, the bones in his neck grinding on each other, he hopes his children are safely asleep; Sam is at primary school, and Alice has one more year at nursery school. As soon as things have settled down and the asset ratio is back where it belongs, he will give Cy Mannheim a call in New York to say that he is ready and that will be the end. Although Tubal’s is small compared with commercial banks, Cy believes it has something First Federal wants, class. Julian feels clammy now. He swallows two Migraleves. The lights in the customs cabin at the border crossing – barely a formality – are swirling and he knows it’s going to be the worst sort of migraine. Across the border he steps out of the people carrier and into a Mercedes where Gilles Dax of Arendt and Oppenheim is waiting. Dax makes very stiff and formal conversation. He mentions the weather. He doesn’t mention the plane or the transaction. They drive towards Vaduz across a huge arched bridge which spans the Rhine. Arendt and Oppenheim have their offices behind the National Bank. They drive straight into an underground car park and are shown into a lift that takes them up a few floors to the boardroom, which is all reassuring wood and gilt with the sort of Empire furniture that looks as though it has been retrieved from Napoleon’s private office – winged ormolu lions, Egyptian motifs of falcons and sphinxes, and plenty of that ornate Napoleonic N which also adorns chocolates in France. The air itself is heavy with discretion. A young woman in a business suit is standing by. She is introduced by Dax as Marie Delder, chief legal officer. Nothing in her demeanour suggests that she finds it unusual to be presiding over the withdrawal of £250m.

‘Everything is ready for signature, sir,’ she says in that reassuring Swiss way, as if life is essentially about being prepared and methodical and sensible. He sits at a vast desk like a president at a peace conference, and she stands, sliding the documents towards him in leather folders. As she leans over him for a moment, he detects a scented warmth which touches him – his mind is jumpily susceptible to such thoughts – with its suggestion that she is nervous. As nervous, perhaps, as he is.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Let’s do it.’