‘Excuse me, Mr Wallace.’ It was George again. ‘There’s a phone call for you.’

Manfred and Peter exchanged a look. No one ever phoned them at the club. It was a matter of principle.

‘It’s your father.’

‘My father?’

‘He says it’s important, sir.’

Manfred tamped out his cigarette and followed George to the bar. He paused for a moment before raising the phone receiver to his ear. Something had gone wrong with the deal. No. Impossible. It was signed and sealed, he’d witnessed it with his own eyes just hours before.

‘Father?’

His father’s voice, when it came, was not its usual stentorian self; no bark, no bite. ‘Manfred, I’m afraid I have some terrible news.’

Peter Carlson drained the last of his whiskey and turned in time to see Manfred replace the receiver on its cradle, groping for the surface of the counter to steady himself. His face was ashen, even the high color of his recent exertions on the squash court drained from it.

Peter hurried over. Manfred’s blank eyes seemed focused on some distant, imaginary horizon. ‘Manfred, are you all right?’ he asked. Only when he rested a hand on his friend’s arm did Manfred appear to register his presence.

‘My sister…she’s dead.’

‘What? How? I saw her at El Morocco’s only last night.’

‘Not Gayle. Lilly.’

‘Lilly?’

‘She drowned.’

Peter remained silent, not because he couldn’t think of anything to say, but because in the twenty-two years he had known Manfred Wallace he had never once seen him cry.

Five

As Hollis turned off Woods Lane, a dog darted into the road. He braked suddenly, stalling the car, and the small basket of chocolates spilled off the passenger seat on to the floor. He let them lie where they fell—already softened by the heat, the dirt clinging to them—then he restarted the engine and carried on along Highway Behind the Lots.