‘Oh, run the universe, I expect, as everyone tries to do who makes a lot of money and then uses philanthropy to cover up the original sin.’

‘Will he succeed?’

‘I vastly doubt it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because whatever was once good in his character has been gangrenated – if that’s a word – by prosperity. He has paid for everything and he wants a free pass. He wants us to cut corners with the truth. But there are people who won’t let him do that.’

‘People like you?’

‘And you perhaps?’

‘Don’t you like him?’

‘I like Gilles about as much as a cat loves a crow.’

‘Then you hate him?’

‘No, no, not hate. But something close to it, yes.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘Someone dropped out at the very last moment, didn’t you hear? Someone called Updark. Subject to Better Offer, I have a feeling. He’s having dinner tonight with the Foreign Secretary, apparently. Silvi rang me, furious. I’m the spare gooseberry who is always on tap. Otherwise there would have been thirteen round this table, and you may be surprised how superstitious Silvi is. I don’t mind, I have no pride. Very occasionally, you do meet somebody interesting. And it makes a change from scrambled eggs with Mum.’

‘Who keeps Mum from haring off tonight to Malvern?’

‘A nice maths student at Magdalen to whom I pay ten pounds an hour.’

Gilles, with a full decanter, suddenly loomed over them like a fighter pilot. ‘To hell with the expense, give the canaries another seed,’ replenishing their glasses. He bent closer. ‘Just don’t believe a word she tells you,’ his voice lazy and larval and powered by riches acquired too easily. ‘Do not believe a word.’

After the port had circulated a second time, they went upstairs.

The waitress pointed the way to the loo. On the walls were photographs of Gilles in his speed-skating days. An Olympic silver medal at Nagano. Taking the corner at a world championship in Montreal, leaning sideways with his gloved hand touching the ice.

The man who came and sat on the cherry-red chesterfield beside Dyer still had the huge square knees of a skater. His trousers strained at the seams.

‘Tell me, Jean,’ Gilles said genially, slowly swirling a honey-coloured liquid around a large glass. ‘Rustum Marvar.’

‘What about him?’

‘I saw you talking to him this afternoon. He was behaving in an unusually ecstatic way. What was that about?’

‘His son scored an amazing goal. Didn’t you see?’

‘Is that all?’ still swirling. ‘It seemed rather more than that.’

‘I don’t know him well,’ said Dyer guardedly, judging the direction of the question. ‘I’ve only met him once before.’

‘Just wondered what you make of him, that’s all.’

‘I like him. Why?’