Waugh dropped backwards on to a red velvet sofa, pulling primly at his kimono as one hairy leg with the dimensions of a small tree popped into view. And then, again, the savagery of the despot who has no experience of being challenged: ‘You would not dare.’

‘The world is changing, Perry,’ King said calmly.

‘Really?’ Waugh said. ‘How unfortunate.’

‘It is for you, Perry. Because we’re finally learning not to despise the victims of abuse.’ He let it sink in. ‘You broke a bond of trust. You abused the children in your care.’

‘Genius makes its own rules.’

King shook his head. ‘If you have a genius, Perry, then it is for destroying the lives of children. How many would you say? Over the years.’

‘Ratting me out, are you, Benjamin? You little snitch. You little shit. You grass. Is that the correct term? Everybody hates a tell-tale, King.’

‘Hundreds?’

‘Oh, more. Thousands. An MP.’ Waugh laughed. ‘A politician. And I wanted greatness for you! Remember?’ Measuring the air with a languid hand. ‘The good old days. “Shakespeare is here. T. E. Lawrence is here. And you boys are here.”’

‘Oh, Perry,’ King said. ‘Then where does that leave you?’

I picked up the pipe and breathed in, inhaling something that stank like a curry made of gasoline and flowers. A heavy, musky, strangely beautiful smell. I had never smelled it before. I had only heard tales.

‘Opium?’ I said.

Waugh sniffed. ‘The honey of the gods,’ he said, smiling to reveal a jumble of crumbling teeth, like the mouth of an elderly weasel. ‘The keys of paradise. The gardens of gold. “Boy – as you love me – I charge you to fold – pipe over pipe into gardens of gold”. Did you ever read Aleister Crowley, detective? No? Not your thing?’

I crossed the room.

‘What happened to the girl?’ I said.

The Head Master looked genuinely perplexed. ‘I thought we were talking about the boys. I thought that’s what you were going to arrest me for. The boys. I thought that’s why I was being thrown to the baying mob. The thousands of boys. What bloody girl?’

The open palm of my hand cracked against his cheek.

‘Ouch,’ he said, recoiling as if I had hurt feelings more than flesh. ‘That was very painful.’

‘Anya Bauer,’ I said. ‘German. Blonde. Pretty. Around fifteen years old when she passed through your hands some twenty years ago.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That girl.’ His eyes darted across the floor. Then he closed them. ‘She rests. She sleeps. Perchance to dream.’

‘Where?’ I said.

He was looking at Ben King.

‘What do you expect me to do, Benjamin? Beg for forgiveness? Seek counselling? Repent my sins?’

‘What would the Romans have recommended, Perry?’ King said. ‘Or the Greeks? Or T. E. Lawrence?’

‘I don’t know. A cup of tea and a nice lie down?’