Their car had turned out of Government House grounds, heading west towards the Prime Minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive.

'I've sometimes thought,' Margaret said half to herself, 'that Harvey Warrender is just a little mad.'

That was the trouble, Howden thought; Harvey was a little mad. That was why there was no assurance that he might not produce that hastily written agreement of nine years earlier even though, in doing so, he would destroy himself.

What were Harvey's own feelings about that long-ago deal, Howden wondered. As far as he knew, Harvey Warrender had always been honest in politics until that time. Since then, Harvey's nephew had had his TV franchise and, if rumour Were true, had made a fortune. So had Harvey, presumably; his standard of living now was far beyond the means of a cabinet minister, though fortunately he had been discreet and not indulged in sudden changes.

At the time the franchise was awarded there had been plenty of criticism and innuendo. But nothing had ever been proven and the Howden government, newly elected with a big majority in the House of Commons, had steam-rollered its critics, and eventually – as he had known from the first would happen – people had grown tired of the subject and it dropped out of sight.

But was Harvey remembering? And suffering a little, with a stirring of uneasy conscience? And trying, perhaps, in some warped and twisted way to make amends?

There had been a strange thing about Harvey lately – an almost obsessive concern with doing the 'right' thing and hewing to the line of law, even in trifling ways. On several occasions recently there had been argument at Cabinet – Harvey objecting because some proposed action had overtones of political expediency; Harvey arguing that every fine-print clause in every law must be scrupulously observed. When that happened James Howden had thought little about the incidents, dismissing them as passing eccentricity. But now, remembering Harvey's alcoholic insistence tonight that immigration law must be administered exactly as laid down, he began to wonder.