And he’s chosen me: if Minerva isn’t out of her cotton pickin’ mind, and if that is so, then I must have something to offer, right? Stands to reason. And I will accept everything on offer with open hands. Why not? I don’t want any more of the Take-Away-Life, thanks. I’ve had better. Got a taste for it now. I don’t want anything cheap or tacky ever again.

And Leni? She’ll learn to like being rich. It’s easy. She’ll catch it from me. Very contagious.

The car came to a stop outside the Hotel Welcome. At the quayside a trim launch at the foot of the steps: two smiling Italian crew members sparkling in pale blue, the Grottorosso crest, a fountain in an olive-wreath, embroidered on their chests and splendid in black and gold on the limp flag at the stern.

He stepped down into the launch; the sailors waved to a couple of girls on a balcony, cast off, spun the engine into life and headed for the middle of the bay. He stood braced in the stern beside the now streaming flag, the spray prismatic with rainbows, the sleek lines of the ship coming nearer and nearer. Above the roar of the engine one of the sailors was singing.

Nothing tacky here, he thought. Nothing. That’s the Big Time ahead.

The only time that Marcus had ever been on a boat was years ago during one Half Term, when Desmond and Decca had hired a rather glossy Cabin Cruiser and they had gone from Windsor to Marlow: with a stop-off for Pimms and lunch at Skindles. It was something he had remembered all his life, until the instant that he set foot upon the scrubbed deck of the Papageno when it was obliterated for ever by the size and splendour of everything about him.

Nando Belluno had met him affably at the gangplank, and taken him on the tour, for, he explained, Grottorosso preferred to remain resting in his cabin. The strain of the last two days, tragic days, he murmured with a sad shake of his head, had exhausted him. So from Engine Room to Bridge they went, Marcus slightly glazed with wonder at the length of the Dining Saloon and its table to seat eighteen; the walls of the library, ridged with the spines of a thousand books in blue, green and scarlet leather; the Main Saloon whose colours stemmed entirely from the splendid T’ang camel which stood, bolted securely, under glass to a marble table in the centre; the Cinema with armchair seats covered in crimson suède, and the glittering Galley, precise and surgical as a scalpel. A vastly luxurious ship, bearing no resemblance to maritime matters whatsoever. It would have been perfectly possible to spend weeks on board, without ever setting foot on deck, and never realize that one was at sea at all. Providing the weather was dead calm or one was in harbour. It was crammed, discreetly, with every kind of artifact and comfort, cunningly designed to take one’s mind off the sea, its immensity, and one’s own insignificance.