Three months ago he lost his job and fiancée together, and since then he’s gone from being a secret agent to an amateur book dealer while he works out what he’s going to do with his life. Only, I don’t know what I’m doing with my own life, so the ground’s not exactly steady under anyone’s feet. And he’s a lord, did I mention that? His father’s got a title, a stately home, and a steam yacht, and my ma took washing in to make ends meet. I don’t know what we’re doing in the same postcode, let alone the same bed.

But he’s good with books and that’s what matters. Right, Mr. Deansbrook?

They finished dickering over prices, and Will left with the satisfying consciousness that he’d not only carried off the job well, but thoroughly annoyed his colleague in the process. He headed back along the Charing Cross Road towards May’s Buildings just as St. Martin-in-the-Fields’ bells chimed five. Perfect timing to get in, tidy up, and wash before he went to Kim’s place.

They pretty much always stayed in these days. A few months ago, Kim had killed man-about-town Johnnie Cheveley in what he’d be the first to call an unnecessarily dramatic manner. He’d been commended for it at the inquest, since Cheveley had already shot Will once and been about to finish the job, but that didn’t cut much ice with the posh set. Kim hadn’t been popular before, but after the second time he’d been called a murderer in a restaurant, he’d decided to keep out of sight for a while. Apart from anything else, Will was liable to beat the daylights out of the next person who said it.

Anyway, Kim’s place was as good as anywhere in London. It was clean, luxurious, beautifully appointed, with art on the walls and expensive electric lights. His man, Peacock, was an excellent cook; there was a cocktail bar as good as a night-club’s, not that Will much cared for cocktails; and the bed was right there. Or the sofa, or the floor come to that, because fucking couldn’t solve your problems but it didn’t half take your mind off them for a while.

That was another difference between them. Kim lived in luxury; Will counted himself damn lucky to have a bedroom above a bookshop. He’d previously have said ‘a shabby bookshop’, but that had been before Kim.