‘Bill, come on …’ McCracken allowed a conspiratorial note to creep into his voice. ‘Look, these guys are on your side. Since you put the Crew together, they’ve never made as much dosh. Okay, they have to pay three quarters of it into central funds, but they’re well rewarded for that, plus they recognise it’s working. That’s why they’re happy to go along with it.’

‘Go along with it, Frank? You make it sound like they have a choice.’

‘Bill, you put this outfit together on the understanding everyone would have a certain degree of autonomy. We all sit at the same boardroom table, we all have the same ambition, but it’s always been the case that each one of these guys is a gaffer in his own right, too.’

Pentecost affected a puzzled expression. ‘Are you lecturing me about something I invented?’

‘What I’m trying to say is they’re loyal. But that we can’t take that loyalty for granted.’

Pentecost headed for the door in the frosted glass wall partitioning the boardroom from his own office. He went through, leaving the door open for McCracken to follow.

The Chairman’s office, or the Head Office as it was usually referred to, wasn’t used a great deal, hence it existed in a permanent near-pristine state, its blocks of shelving lined with books, mostly legal and business tomes (which, from time to time, Pentecost actually read), but everything else hinting more at luxury: it had a plush carpet, expensive artwork on its wood-panelled walls, a seventy-inch hi-def television, a row of carved Italian chairs and, in the very centre, dominating everything, a huge, leather-topped desk with a neat stack of phoney paperwork at one end and a desktop computer at the other.

Pentecost strode to the drinks cabinet in the corner, where he filled two large tumblers with ice cubes and poured malt whisky from a crystal decanter.