Julian and Nigel have early printouts of the Evening Standard piece, sent on by Nigel’s contact at the newspaper. They are in Julian’s garden, which opens into the shared gardens behind, seven private acres of trembling spring.

Two people are out exercising their dogs. As they pass Julian and Nigel, sitting wrapped against the early chill at a table under the mulberry tree – just coming into leaf – they wave cheerily. Dog people, Julian thinks, have an idealised vision of a world in which everybody is matey and loves animals and likes a chat. Julian pours the coffee. It’s a blend that Kimberly favours, because it’s produced under the Fair Trade scheme. Of course, economists think the Fair Trade scheme is about as useful as a window tax, but it’s actually pretty good coffee grown at high altitude in Central America, perhaps Belize or Honduras. He can’t remember: they are possibly the same place. Julian is trying to calm himself with these harmless thoughts. He sips his coffee and picks up the printout. It’s only a paragraph in a column in the not-too-serious business pages of a free-sheet, but he feels his insides lurch and a migraine beginning to form. It always starts in the same way, with a bubbling somewhere to the back of his head that gives birth to the headache proper. Then it feels as though the inside of his head is being rasped by gravel and the whole thing forms into a compact mass of dark pressure waiting to be born. It’s a form of parturition.

‘Oh, just fishing,’ says Nigel, swallowing his coffee carelessly.

‘Can we stop it?’

‘We will issue a statement. We mustn’t look as though we take it too seriously. I’ve got Eric on the case. He’s way ahead. Apparently the information was leaked by someone to this Cornish newspaper, and, so Eric thinks, they have leaked it to the FT and now that dickhead at the Standard has picked up on it. As I said, just fishing.’

‘This looks organised. Do you think it’s organised, Nige?’

‘I don’t think so. Let’s see what evidence they can produce. It’s easy enough for a source to make allegations but you know for the FSA or the Charity Commission it’s very different. You’ve got to tough it out. You are the eleventh generation of Tubals and the people out there know the bank’s history. This isn’t Northern Rock or any bank with a lot of footballers for clients. This is old money. Nobody wants to see a scandal, except a few muckrakers in the press. I’ll put Amanda on alert.’

‘Eric must find the source. It has to be one of the hedgies. We’ve got to get to him.’