They continued to a wider wood-panelled door at the end of the passage. J knocked and entered without waiting for a reply. A spacious room stretched out, the end glass panels revealing a small basement courtyard with high whitewashed brick walls. At the room’s centre was a rectangular table, also glass, with two mounds of magazines and catalogues; among them Patrick could see copies of Country Life and a catalogue for a recent Old Masters’ auction at Christie’s. Between them lay a tray containing a large cafétière full to the brim, white china milk jug and sugar bowl, four piled saucers and four cups. Two white-leather sofas at ninety degrees to each other were grouped around the table, separated at the corner by an oversize television. The natural subterranean darkness was relieved by a dazzling montage of sunken ceiling spotlights, a slender serpentine trail of smoke from a resting cigarette curling its way through their shafts of illumination.

Two figures rose from a sofa. The taller one was wearing brushed blue jeans and a crisp white linen shirt. His jet-black hair was neatly cut, allowed at the back to fall to the base of his neck. A cropped, shaped beard and moustache enhanced the symmetry and angularity of a starkly defined face, straight nose and almost black eyes, topped by brooding lashes and brows. The beardless spaces of skin and neck were of a spotless purity, unusual in such a masculine face.

The other figure was also tall and slim, a tight-fitting cream skirt stopping at the knee, below which were incongruously stocky legs. Her pale hair was on the turn to grey, but delayed in its progress by blonde highlights creating tiny waves on layers descending to a taper on the shoulders. A pink shirt outlined slim breasts and upper body but the face itself was plainish, neither ugly nor alluring, hazel eyes sunken, nose just too thin and long, lips falling short of generous.

J stopped short of the glass table which separated them. ‘Isobel. Kareem.’ He glanced at Patrick. ‘May I introduce Patrick Duke. He’s come in response to your request, Kareem.’

‘My request?’ said Kareem. A man, Patrick instantly suspected, more used to delivering orders than asking questions.

‘You wanted a solicitor,’ said J.

Kareem looked Patrick up and down. They were both tall, lean, athletic men; the contrast was the colour of their skins, black and tan. Patrick, in a charcoal grey suit, striped shirt and blue tie was the more formally dressed but, somehow, less elegant. Kareem presented a gliding, harmonious flow from top to bottom; it appeared to be attracting the rapt attention of the woman standing beside him.

‘So,’ said Kareem, with an audible hiss, ‘you are a solicitor.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Patrick, adopting a suitably deferential relationship to his ‘client’.