Which leaves Schon. I run the gut check. Is there something I don’t know, that I need to know? Yes. No question. Time to renew acquaintances with Muller. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in touch. I assume he’ll take my call, but there’s no point ringing him blind. He’s too smart to yield anything if I go on a pure fishing exercise. I’ll need to prepare. Jess can help. She’ll have gone through every analyst’s report on Schon and picked up whatever gossip there is. But I also need an inside source.

I’ll have to do what I should have been doing every day since Clare died.

I’ll ring my brother-in-law.

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

THE SPRING WEATHER HAS CHANGED again, whistling up another mass of dark clouds that will unleash a pelting shower any minute. I buy myself a copy of the Evening Standard and shelter in the Red Lion on Derby Gate. This has the double benefit of keeping me out of the rain and giving me time to summon up the courage to ring Charles.

The barman fills my glass. ‘For another five quid you can have the whole bottle,’ he tempts me. It is impolite to decline, even though it’s a sticky and heavy Australian Chardonnay that I would usually reject.

In a few hours, the pub – a fulcrum between Treasury, Foreign Office and department of Health – will be rammed with civil servants, special advisers and MPs. Now, just after the lunchtime crush, it contains only a few of us running away from our lives. I take a table in the corner where I can be alone with bottle and paper, comforted by the rhythmic rain pounding the pavement. Actually, it sounds more like hail, an April squall blown up out of nowhere. It will vanish fifteen minutes later into a sky so blue that I will forget it happened.

I sip my drink and flip through the Standard. Media Corp’s bid for Capital Television is big enough to make the news section, page five. It’s illustrated with a snap of Media Corp’s founder, Jimmy Breitner, leaving HQ, protected by a posse of acolytes and advisors. The gaunt, buzz-cut man at his side is Jock Streatham, Breitner’s fixer and consigliere, who for fifteen years was editor of the Globe. Just behind the boss is Alex Elliott, half visible at the edge of the frame. There is just enough of his poncy floppy hair and smirk in view to trigger my automatic response of jaw thrust forward and grinding teeth. I skim the article, but there’s less in it than Jess briefed me.