‘I remember the first time I met Adam,’ Khan said, shaking his head. ‘Thirteen years old. We were coming in from the playing fields. All of us. The six of us. Ben and Ned. Piggy Philips and Jimmy Sutcliffe. Hugo and me. The First Fifteen rugby trials. Covered in mud and blood. And there was Adam in his nice new uniform carrying his bloody oboe in its case. Waiting for some music tutorial. And somebody – probably the Pig – said, come on, give us a tune, new boy. Give us a tune, will you? Making fun of him, of course. But Adam took his instrument out of its case and he gave us the sweetest smile – and he played Bach. “Sheep May Safely Graze”. And it was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.’

There were photographs on the walls of Khan’s office. I stood up to get a closer look. It is always worth studying a man’s shrine to himself.

Khan smiling in a dinner jacket receiving an award from another man in a dinner jacket.

Khan making a speech at a podium that bore the words ‘Aut vincere aut mori’ – the Potter’s Field school motto: Conquer or die.

The teenage Khan on a cricket field flanked by the King brothers, and Piggy Philips grinning behind them, all of them in immaculate whites, Philips resting his bat on his shoulder like a caveman with his club.

I did not see the photograph of the seven boys in their Combined Cadet Force uniforms.

‘Can I help you?’ Khan said sharply.

‘Do you get back to your old school much, sir?’ I said, smiling at him.

He was immune to my charms. ‘I speak to the boys. There are various events. I still have friends at the school. Among the masters, I mean. There are various military charities the school helps this firm support. Look, what’s your point?’

‘Best days of your life, eh, sir?’

‘Indeed.’

There was one lone painting on the wall. A hidden corner of the city, a canyon of office blocks glazed with a shining haze, like a city seen in a dream, or remembered far from home. There were no people. I already knew what the initials would be in the right-hand corner.

j s

‘James Sutcliffe,’ I said. ‘James Sutcliffe painted this picture.’

‘James was a genius,’ Khan said. ‘He could have achieved more than any of us.’

‘Why did he kill himself?’

‘James was troubled. His parents thought that having those Harley Street doctors stuff him with happy pills would make everything all right. But it pushed him over the edge.’

‘You made some close friends at Potter’s Field,’ Mallory said.

Khan picked up an unlit cigarette, put it into his mouth, then took it out. He shivered with undisguised contempt.

‘That’s what school’s for,’ he said.