Then they all piled in the motor and Sammy set off down the driveway. Halfway down, he braked sharply. Nula jerked against her seat belt and looked at Charlie, who didn’t even seem to have noticed. He was thumbing through a magazine about light aeroplanes. Christ, he already had a big Sunseeker moored down at Crableck Quay on the Solent, a Maserati and a couple of top-of-the-range Ferraris parked up in the garages at home, a superyacht called Lady of the Manor down in Palma marina. He was particularly delighted about the superyacht because it was six feet longer than Javier Matias’s. Not a bloody plane now, surely?

‘What did Sammy stop like that for?’ she asked, feeling her nerves start to jangle.

‘Checking the brakes are sound, that’s all,’ he said.

He means not tampered with, thought Nula. Oh Christ.

‘Where are we going then?’ she asked him. She hated surprises of any sort.

‘You’ll see.’

They ended up at the heliport in London and Charlie started milling about the place, shaking hands with people, slapping them on the back, cracking jokes, doing his ‘everyone’s mate’ act with Terry right there, sober, sensible and watchful at his side. Charlie pulled Nula forward and introduced her to the guy who seemed to be in charge of operations.

‘My wife,’ he said. ‘Nula.’

‘Pleasure,’ said the man, and turned back to Charlie. ‘I thought the Robinson R22 two-seater.’

‘Fine,’ said Charlie. He turned to Nula. ‘You wait here, babes, with Terry. You just wait and see, OK?’

Charlie walked off toward the smaller of three helicopters.

‘He’s not . . . ?’ Nula asked Terry.

Terry heaved a sigh. ‘He’s been up here six or seven times, having lessons.’

‘Christ, really?’ She couldn’t imagine Charlie as a pilot. He was nowhere near steady enough to be in charge of an aircraft.

‘I bet you any money you like,’ said Terry, watching his old mate bouncing off over the tarmac, ‘that he’ll want to get in the big one today, the blue one. He won’t go in the little one, that’s not showy enough for Charlie, not with you standing here watching.’

‘How about the middle one?’

‘The Bell 206 Jet Ranger? Nah. You watch.’

Charlie and the instructor had paused near the smallest helicopter.

‘Shit, there he goes,’ said Nula with a bitter smile, because this was so typically Charlie. He was heading for the biggest aircraft and the instructor was following.

‘That’s a beast, that one, the bigger Jet Ranger. Twin engines,’ said Terry.

Charlie got in the pilot’s seat and the instructor sat in the copilot’s position.

‘Christ, is he sure . . . ?’ Nula asked.

‘Well he’s been having the lessons.’ Terry, arms folded, was watching Charlie put on headphones. Then the engines began to roar and Terry ushered Nula back inside the building out of the downdraught.