Meanwhile, there was trade to attend to. The London-based Stones and a dozen other ‘families’ based in London, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow had met and formed an alliance as powerful as the Mafia’s; inch by inch they’d seized control of the whole country’s drug trade. Charlie was going from strength to strength, getting increasingly distant from the street life he’d once known. He was a top man, bringing in the gear, then it was broken up and sold on to the ten-kilo men. They then sold it on to the one-kilo men, who distributed it to their network of dealers. The Matias crew had come over from Colombia. Charlie and his associates met with them at the Dorchester, wined and dined them; it was going good.

All in all, Charlie was pleased with progress. But . . . what did it all mean, if he was married to a miserable depressed cow who couldn’t have any more kids, if he had no son to pass the whole thing on to?

He’d got in the habit of intercepting the post so that Nula couldn’t see what was coming in. One, because anything and everything upset her. Two, because he was sure the adoption agency was going to give them the thumbs down, and of course then she’d be gutted and would plunge into more gloomy crying if he didn’t get there first and somehow soften the blow. The sparky, light-hearted sexed-up party girl of yesteryear was long gone, it seemed.

As time passed, Charlie felt that he would be almost relieved if the adoption idea didn’t work out. No more ups and downs, no more tiptoeing around his moody mare of a wife. No more government toadies nosying around in his furniture-manufacturing business. It made him sweat, operating this close to the wire, he had a lot to lose.

Finally he became convinced that the whole idea was a bad one. He didn’t tell Nula. Didn’t know how to, really. Then he got a letter from the agency asking more questions about his firm, asking to arrange a visit to his premises. Sure, he had legitimate business premises, damned sure he did, six factories churning out three-piece suites for the big retailers, but the real gravy went on at the separate offices that serviced the paperwork for the furniture business. There was the background business where the drugs were cut and packaged and shipped out. He couldn’t have government types sniffing around. It was no good.

At last his overstretched patience snapped and he phoned them.

‘Look, we’ve decided not to go ahead. It’s too stressful for my wife. Too upsetting. Call it off.’

‘Well, if you’re sure . . .’

‘Yeah, I’m sure. Forget it. We don’t want to go on with it. Cancel our application, OK?’

‘If you could put it in writing to us . . .’

‘I will,’ he said, and slapped the phone down.