Kim says that supper is ready and whenever they want to they can go up to the study.

‘Must we?’ says Goldstone.

There is a suspicion that he is gay, but there has never been any scandal, no Brazilian rent boys or lovers, the sort of thing that the newspapers – always on the lookout – would have discovered. His success is due, Julian thinks, to his relentless and impenetrable charm.

When they are sitting in the study, after Kim has made sure they have everything they need, Goldstone wants to talk about Julian’s pictures. He particularly likes the new picture which Kim gave him for his birthday and which now hangs to one side of the fireplace.

‘Interesting work. Right, Julian. Tell me what’s happened. This is entirely between us and will go no further. The background, of course, is that our financial policies are working and we don’t want any flies in the ointment at this stage. Altruism is not an issue.’

‘I understand. Look, to go back a bit, I fell for Professor Kuhn’s theory and I advocated the bell curve model. We lost a lot of money when our main hedge fund went down. In the meanwhile, I had been having talks with Cy Mannheim. I had to decide if we could still really compete as an investment bank, or whether it would be better to go back to commercial banking. But my judgement was that even that would be slow death.’

‘I’ve talked to Cy, by the way. He called.’

‘Fine. Well, as I said, we pumped in a lot of money to keep the bank’s rating high. We obviously didn’t want a run.’

‘The question is, Julian, and you must forgive me for asking, has the bank been in breach of regulations?’

‘No. Our family trust has put in money.’

‘How much?’

‘Two hundred and fifty million, sterling.’

‘As a loan?’

‘As an investment. We have made deposits in various funds and deposit accounts. And the Koopman Charitable Foundation have also put in some money. A hundred and fifty, to be precise.’

‘Do the trustees know?’

‘To be brutally honest, they don’t need to know until we present the accounts. I have a meeting anyway to talk to them about it. But you can see that it’s doubly important we avoid a run.’

Goldstone is smiling as if to confirm that they are men of the world.