We stopped at the unobtrusive black door, and through the panel of glass above it I could see that the room it led on to was unlit. Michael pressed the intercom and stood back from the door to look upwards. followed his gaze, and saw that he had positioned himself in full view of a security camera hanging on the underside of the pediment. There came a distant crackle from the intercom, and then a startling buzzing sound to indicate that the lock had been opened. Michael held the door for me and ushered me into a darkened corridor. The entrance was equipped with a doormat and a shoe brush. In the corner, lying on its plaque, there was a large stag’s head, whose antlers supported a number of designer handbags. The image of the wooden mount was cast in negative on the wall above, a lighter thumbnail shape on the dirty paint showing where it must have hung. The coat rack was laden with expensive overcoats, every brass peg trailing dark blue wool and black cashmere. Michael removed his own and added it to the pile. The passageway was long and narrow, clearly running along the side of the dining room in the restaurant next door. The walls were lined with Spy cartoons, pencil and ink caricatures of sporting, political and academic figures from the late nineteenth century. As we moved into the building thick green carpet deadened our footfalls. The air smelt of polish and dust. I began to hear a noise, a kind of rumbling coming from somewhere above, as of many feet stamping and voices baying in unison. The disembodied voices filled up the abandoned coats in my mind, giving them each a ghostly shape. My guide heard it too, and he turned to me and smiled. Beneath his proprietorial air, his need to seem in control to emphasize his own superiority, I sensed a frisson of excitement. His small eyes glinted in the dim light of the hall. At the end of the corridor there was a flight of steps that twisted back on itself, leading up into the second floor. The rumbling sound grew closer, and I thought I could distinguish individual cries as it came into focus. We came through the doors at the top of the stairs and were confronted by a man of about twenty-five, standing behind a desk in an elegant lobby.

‘Hello, Findlay, you fucker,’ he said, giving him a friendly slap on the arm. Michael returned it with the same jocular obscenities. Their greeting was curiously stilted, as if someone had told them that this was the way men were supposed to behave to one another, but had omitted to explain why. Beneath the cheerfulness, I sensed that they did not much care for each other.

‘Who’s this?’ the man asked, turning his attention to me. ‘I don’t think we’ve met. Is he a new member?’

‘No, no, he’s a guest,’ Michael said, blustering.

‘A guest?’ The man raised his eyebrows and the signet-ringed hand that had been edging towards me in greeting fell back by his side. ‘You know we decided not to allow guests at . . . well, this evening.’