Artair sees a world where art and Mammon are reconciled. In truth it’s probably more a world where the artist is in charge. There always seem to be elites. No man can serve two masters. When she was trying to act, Fleur believed that artists really did hold the keys of the kingdom, but she came to see that the bankers are in fact in command of our world. Harry, for all his love of paintings and the ballet, believed that bankers are the glue that holds society together. They are part of a higher elite, who really understand how the world works. Their understanding of money has given them something incomprehensible to politicians and ordinary people. Without their capital, directed to where it is needed, the whole system would collapse. Who is more important to stability, a Rothschild or a prime minister? Harry asked. He seemed to think that there was only one answer. But now, now that the system has come so close to collapse, thanks to the bankers, would he have changed his mind?

She has narrowed the choice of dress suitable for her talk down to three: one looks a little extravagant, with large flowers on white, the second is perhaps too severe, and the third is too short for a serious topic like compost. She calls Kim for advice.

The editor is preparing his bombshell. It’s going to be trailed on the front page in a banner: The Cornish Globe and Mail’s exclusive evidence points to blue-blood banking scandal.

Inside pages run pictures of the façade of Tubal and Co. in Bread Street, under the sign of the Leathern Bottle, and some society photographs of the family are spread about. The editor writes that he has seen evidence, and financial experts have confirmed the authenticity of this evidence, which points to a massive misuse of funds by Tubal and Co. He explains the Cornish connection, and how the paper came to be in possession of these documents. A rather smudgy scan of one of the documents runs beside his op-ed. These documents will be made available to the Financial Services Authority and the Serious Fraud Office if asked. The editor speculates on what the effect of this scandal will be on Whitehall.

He is working on the layout for tomorrow’s first run. He has ordered ten thousand more copies printed, raising circulation to twenty-two thousand. Sales have fallen nearly seven per cent in the last four months alone. He’s planning to spin this story out, explaining the central role of the paper in bringing this arrogant bunch of bankers to book; this brave little regional newspaper is serving the national interest. There’s a portrait of reporter and blogger Melissa Tregarthen, twenty-two, who first got wind of the scandal.