Losing him a second time is the best thing that has ever happened. It has taken me four years to say that, but there it is. My life has been redeemed more by his second disappearance than it was shattered by his first. Past the statutory retirement age, just about, I am brimming with ambition. My business booms, my private life glows, and a confident whisper has reached me that I am to be offered the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for ‘contributions to British culture’ – contributions that have been made, overwhelmingly, in the four years since my friend’s second vanishing act.

This is not what I tell my wife, who plays a more prominent role in my considerations than heretofore. Since my return from Tawburn, Myrtle has changed in response to my changes, as a good spouse must. Say what you like about Myrtle, she has the antennae of a spy satellite and the discretion of a chessmaster. Not once has she asked me what happened during that week up north, or why I have swept out a cupboardful of quack medications, refuse to visit the osteopath and seem reinvigorated none the less. I, for my part, have revealed nothing of the causes of my restoration. She observes the sparkle in my eye, and starts to twinkle in response.

The arrival of Sandra Adams presents a challenge to her resilience. Sandi is swift and hungry. She claims a desk in the corner of my office and is soon spending as many as four nights a week in London, in a flat that I have rented for her. Without consulting me, she enters Maria Olszewska for European Young Musician of the Year and, when the girl blazes to victory on continental television, is swamped with offers of dates and recordings. Everyone is gasping to hear Maria, who will not finish school for another year. A Dutch agent, Hans Derks, comes up with an interesting proposition. He will give us world rights in an energetic Russian pianist in exchange for the right to present Maria in the Low Countries. It looks good on paper and soon turns into the best swap since Jacob’s lentil-soup-for-birthright deal.