“Money isn’t the same as happiness.”

“You say that because you’ve always been rich.”

She shook her head impatiently. “But if we – if we were together, one day you might just vanish. And I’d never know why. I don’t know if I want to do that again.”

“It might not happen. It’s a dangerous job, but I’m careful and I work hard. I think I’ll be around for a long, long time.”

“How many old men do you work with?”

“Some. Not many. But some.”

“Here’s how it happened,” she said. “I said good night to him. He was in his dressing gown watching the ten o’clock news. I heard him turn the TV off and come up to bed. I went to sleep. Then the next morning I woke up and he wasn’t in the kitchen. I thought he was asleep. I got dressed and went out. I yelled goodbye up the stairs and he didn’t reply. I should have gone to check but I didn’t want to be late. So I just went out. When I came back everything was exactly how I’d left it and I knew.”

He reached for her hand, felt the tingle right through his bones when she let him take it. How could this small contact from one woman thrill him so much when the naked flesh of another had left him untouched? She was still speaking.

“I went upstairs. I thought maybe – maybe they’d come for him while he was asleep. I opened his bedroom door. I thought, Right, this is it, Ellen. You’ve been expecting this for a long time. I thought it was going to be like a movie. Blood and feathers everywhere.” Her other hand went to her mouth. “But there was just nothing. Nothing at all. His bed was made. Everything was tidy. Even his watch was still on his bedside table. Like he’d gone willingly.”

And left her behind. Perhaps Harry was wrong. Perhaps it had been South America after all. Or perhaps it was simply a way to torture his daughter and increase the value of their actions. When you invest, make it pay.

“It wouldn’t have to be like that,” he told her. “Not for us.”

“My dad thought that too.”

“It’s a dangerous job, that’s all. Like being married to a copper, or a soldier.”

“Coppers’ widows get a body to bury.”

“Look, if it works out for us… you’re right, I’ll probably go first. Not many of us make old bones. I might not last past sixty, but that’s a long way away. And I’ll make sure you’re looked after.”

“Money won’t make up for losing my dad.”

“But it’ll make up for losing me, because by the time I go you’ll be sick of me. You’ll cry for half an hour in the kitchen and then you’ll say, Ah, what the hell, he was getting old anyway, and once he retired he’d only be under my feet. Then you’ll go out and buy a new dress and a bottle of champagne, and you’ll find yourself a fancy man and go dancing. And while I’m still alive, we’ll have a good time. We’ll have the best time there is. We’ll buy a house in the right neighbourhood, and our kids’ll grow up rich and lucky, and they’ll go to the right schools and meet the right people and walk into the right job, and they won’t ever have to know what their dad did to get his money.”