‘How is he?’ The affair between Carver and Alice had developed from their meeting when she had come to Wall Street to interview Northcote for a profile for Forbes magazine. Northcote had a copy framed.

‘Not so good. He even sometimes forgets the end of his sentences and gets mad when anyone tries to help.’

‘He told me he was frightened of retiring. Of atrophying with nothing to do,’ Alice remembered, from their interview.

‘The problem is his still trying to do too much: he’s refusing to let go of a few clients to give himself the reason to come into the city at least two days a week.’

‘His firm, his name?’ she anticipated.

‘No one can ever be as good as he is, in George W. Northcote’s opinion,’ Carver agreed. Holding her like he was, naked, was enough for him today, too.

‘What are the other partners saying?’

‘So far there haven’t been any major mistakes for them to discover but I am going to have to keep a check on what he does to make sure it stays that way: he hasn’t yet realized I’m doing it but I feel like a goddamned spy going behind his back, conspiring against him.’

‘You’re talking the firm: his firm, with his name on it.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about,’ agreed Carver again. ‘A firm he might be endangering!’

‘You’re just putting off confronting him: postponing it.’ They never discussed it, secure as they were with each other, but Alice knew that despite self-confidence verging on arrogance Carver would always be intimidated by the overwhelming personality of George Northcote – the sheer physical presence, even, of someone 6'5" tall and weighing almost 200lbs.

‘You imagine I haven’t worked that out!’

They’d never before seriously argued – fallen out – and Alice, who had never felt intimidated by anyone, was unsettled by the unexpected vehemence in his voice. ‘So when’s it going to happen?’