‘Honey, if I was shockable I’d have been in cryonic suspension forty years ago. I’m just stunned that you should think of such a brilliant way to strike. It’s wild. How did you know?’

‘We call them “crotch watchers” in the business. They all look very gentlemanly, very discreet, serious, correct. Just that they drop their eyes from time to time … you’d never suspect them, so respectable. Hell! We’ve got a couple of Bishops on the lists, not to mention some Very Revs. and a big butch General. You’d be amazed.’

‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘And Grottorosso figures as a “crotch watcher”? Well, well. I mean, not that I didn’t know. I just didn’t know that you did. If you follow me.’

‘Took me five minutes: you can spot one a couple of fields away. Mind you, it’s not my job. Not my “calling”. Just that if I need a bit extra I go up to the Studio, strip off, wag it about a bit, and pocket the loot. In cash. No Full Frontals. Never starkers. Our Mr Bender would have a fit; anyway he says “a draped bum is far more suggestive than a bare one”. And he should know, he’s been flogging them for years. All very discreet, good clientele, well established. A kind of cock-teasers’ Fortnum and Mason.’

‘We live and learn,’ said Minerva. ‘I reckon that between the two of us we’ve scuttled the good ship l’Aiglon, don’t you?’

‘Yah.’ Marcus made circles on the table-top with his beer glass. ‘I don’t even know why I did it. I didn’t like Hagel that much; minny kind of chap. But I don’t know, when he said about the broken pot and the furnace and all that crap, and then when that stupid scrubber Sylva-whatever hit me with the bet-bit, well … I just folded. I mean, betting that tart she’d never screw me! I mean, what kind of tick is he?’

‘Sick,’ said Minerva. ‘He’d get it out of her blow for blow, hair for hair, I’ve seen him do it before. Then he goes over it again and again, recreating it all to himself in the darkness of his mind. Bet your ass. It’s so like him. It’s just the kind of proxy-screw he loves. If only you knew, honey?’

‘Hell take it! I do know!’

‘So you do.’ Minerva laughed and put a hand on his. ‘Don’t look so angry, and don’t look so disillusioned. I think that you did what you did, in whatever manner you did it, as a way of defending principles. Would you agree? Or is that word one with which your generation is not over familiar?’

‘Where I came from,’ said Marcus, ‘they were things you couldn’t afford to have.’

‘I know. They have become stunningly expensive.’