‘Nigel, that’s a load of bullshit. You and Julian are practically joined at the hip. Let me put it to you another way to see if you get it. We have some information picked up by my guys that you lost a bundle on the hedge fund and some other stuff and that you don’t have the capital. My hunch is that you have been pumping money, let’s say £400m., from various sources, and I want to know what the sources are before I buy. It’s as easy as that. Do you want to go away and talk about it? I would consider very carefully if I were you.’

He looks at his watch.

‘I can give you forty minutes, then I’m back to New York.’

‘OK, we will talk and be back,’ says Nigel.

In Nigel’s room they go through to the bathroom and Nigel runs the shower just in case. After all Cy’s people made the reservations.

‘Jesus, Nige, where does he get the information?’

Julian feels sick. His head is beginning, ominously, to ache.

‘It’s inside. It must be.’

‘But who knows? Who knows, for God’s sake?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t know, maybe he’s just guessing.’

‘He knows all right. Do you think it’s Liechtenstein?’

‘I doubt it. It’s just not the way those people think. They have secrecy top of the Ten Commandments.’

‘What are we going to say to him?’

‘Jules, OK, I think we have two options: one, to walk away insulted and see how he reacts, or two, we tell him the truth. Either way we could be screwed. If we walk he can release the information, if he’s got any, and we’ll go down. Or he can offer us a low price, taking out all the family and Koopman’s money.’

‘We’ve only got a few months. I mean, he could drag this out until we are on our knees.’

‘The other way is to deduct the four fifty from the one point four and say that’s our asking price. He’ll understand.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Pretty sure.’

‘You think he’ll pay a billion so that we can repay the trusts quickly?’

‘I think so. But it’s a risk.’

‘Once we admit to it, he can hang us out to dry.’

‘What’s the alternative, Nigel? What’s our fucking alternative?’

‘I don’t know. One possibility is for me to talk to him alone and say look, there’s family pride here, and you’ve upset Julian. He wants to walk away. But maybe we can make a deal which saves Julian and the family embarrassment.’

‘How would that work?’

‘He pays the full amount, let’s say a billion two or three and you, not the family, pay him back the four fifty.’