Arbuthnot offered a pudgy hand that was held, squeezed, and dropped. There was no triumphalism.

Flanked by his accountant and his solicitor, Packer had listened as three men, shuffling and mumbling, had acknowledged his superiority.

'Good as gold, weren't they?' Dubbs's little voice trilled in the shadowed office. 'Well, that's it, isn't it?

We run London. We got there – we got to the top of the tree… I do the money, he does the law and keeps us clean, and you do what you do best – keep the business flowing… A day to remember.'

And that was it. That was the end of the moment of victory.

A short, heavily built, florid-faced balding man, Arbuthnot – three days short of his forty-first birthday

– took the opportunity to reflect that he was now the legal representative of a man who exercised supreme power with chilling ruthlessness. Not that day, but in a week or a fortnight, he would find the opportunity to raise the question of increased remuneration with his employer. He thought he was now worth a minimum of a fifty per cent hike. Cheap at the price. His job for nearly twenty years had been to keep that employer's liberty intact, and he had no doubt that he had the skills to accomplish the same role in the future, but then the stakes would be higher.

He rubbed his hands together and smiled wanly. He knew what he should say, but it would be a cold douse for the others, and he hesitated.

He looked at Dubbs. Couldn't stand the little bastard. His mind raced. He thought Dubbs a chimpanzee with a fresh banana. Dubbs's grin split his narrow lips. But just as an employer of status needed a legal adviser, so he needed a totally trust-worthy man to mind his assets, and they were considerable. Dubbs was short, slight, sallow and neat, and his hair, probably dyed, fell lank on his forehead. He smelt of a pungent body lotion. He wouldn't have invited Dubbs, common little creature, across the threshold of his home, however acute the need. But as he was brilliant in his understanding of the law, so Dubbs was expert in his manipulation of money.