‘That’s true,’ Allan agreed. ‘We send paintings all over the place.’

‘But it’s not the same,’ Gissing growled. ‘It’s all about commerce these days, when it should be about taking pleasure in the works themselves.’ He balled one hand into a fist, thumping the table for effect.

‘Steady there,’ Mike said. ‘Staff’ll think we’re impatient.’ He noticed that Allan’s gaze was fixed on the bar. ‘Good-looking waitress? ’ he guessed, starting to turn his head.

‘Don’t!’ Allan warned, lowering his voice and leaning across the table, as if for a huddle. ‘Three men at the bar, necking a bottle of what looks suspiciously like Roederer Cristal…’

‘Art dealers?’

Allan was shaking his head. ‘I think one of them’s Chib Calloway.’

‘The gangster?’ Gissing’s words coincided with the end of a music track, seeming even louder in the sudden silence, and as he craned his neck to look, the man called Calloway caught the movement and stared back at the trio. His bulbous shaved head rested on huge hunched shoulders. He wore a black leather jacket and a distended black T-shirt. The champagne glass looked like it was being choked by his fist.

Allan had opened his catalogue on the table and was pretending to skim through it. ‘Nice going,’ he muttered.

‘I was at the same school as him,’ Mike added quietly. ‘Not that he’ll remember…’

‘Probably not the time to remind him,’ Allan cautioned as their drinks arrived.

Calloway was a known face in the city: protection, strip bars, maybe drugs, too. Their waitress added a warning look of her own as she moved off, but it was too late: a hulking figure was moving towards the booth. Chib Calloway rested his knuckles against the table and leaned across it, casting a shadow over the three men seated there.

‘Are my ears burning?’ he asked. No one answered, though Mike returned the gangster’s stare. Calloway, only half a year older than Mike, had not worn well.