‘Sorry I didn’t return your call earlier,’ apologized the underwriter. ‘I was out of town.’

‘Thought it was time to make contact again,’ said Charlie.

‘Why did it take you so long?’

Because I screwed your wife in America and knew it would continue if I kept in touch, thought Charlie. He was sure, after so long, that Clarissa wouldn’t be a problem anymore. He said, ‘Busy, with one thing and another.’

‘That’s good,’ said Willoughby. He was a sparse, hesitant man of half-completed, hurried movements. Every few moments he brushed back from his forehead an imaginary flop of hair.

‘I’m not any more,’ said Charlie quickly.

The secretary came in, carrying a silver coffee tray, fully laid; even the coffee pot and the jugs were silver. If Willoughby had had a po under his bed, that would have been silver too, thought Charlie.

Willoughby poured. Offhandedly he said, ‘Thought about you a lot: Clarissa often asks after you.’

Charlie remained impassive. ‘How is she?’

The underwriter settled back in his chair. ‘Fine,’ he said.

Charlie decided that Willoughby was nervous and wondered why.

‘After what you did, it was me who should have called you,’ said Willoughby abruptly. There was a surge of guilt and Willoughby reflected that it was a pretty shabby way of repaying someone who had prevented his going bankrupt over a phoney liner fire in Hong Kong or on the loss of a Russian stamp collection during the American exhibition. But then, if Charlie had done what he suspected, that was pretty shabby too.

‘You talked of a problem on the telephone.’ Charlie wanted to get to the purpose of the visit.

‘Ever heard of Lady Norah Billington?’