Fett said: "I suppose Ellen has been saying this kind of thing to you."

Hamilton laughed. "You're right, but it pains me that you think I'm incapable of such ponderings on my own."

"Oh, I don't doubt you mean it. It's just that Ellen has a way of saying what you are thinking. All the same, you wouldn't be repeating these things to me if they hadn't struck a chord." He paused. "Derek, be careful not to lose Ellen."

They stared at one another for a moment; then they both looked away. There was silence. They had reached the limit of intimacy permitted by their friendship.

Eventually Fett said: "We might get a cheeky bid in the next few days."

Hamilton was surprised. "Why?"

"Someone might think he can pick you up at a bargain price, while you're depressed and panicked by the interim results."

"What would your advice be, then?" Hamilton asked thoughtfully.

"It depends on the offer. But I'd probably say 'Wait.' We should know today whether you've won the oil field license."

"Shield."

"Yes. Win that, and your shares will strengthen."

"We're still a poor prospect for profits."

"But ideal material for an asset stripper."

"Interesting," Hamilton mused. "A gambler would make the bid today, before the Minister's announcement. An opportunist would do it tomorrow, if we win the license. A genuine investor would wait until next week."

"And a wise man would say no to all of them." Hamilton smiled. "Money isn't everything, Nathaniel."

"Good Lord!"

"Is that so heretical?"

"Not at all." Fett was amused, and his eyes sparkled behind the spectacles. "I've known it for years. What surprises me is that you should say it."

"It surprises me, too." Hamilton paused. "A matter of curiosity: do you think we'll get the license?"

"Can't say." Suddenly the broker's face was unreadable again. "Depends whether the Minister believes it should go to an already-profitable company as a bonus, or to an ailing one as a life belt."

"Hm. Neither, I suspect. Remember, we only head the syndicate: it's the total package that counts. The Hamilton section, in control, provides City contacts and management expertise. We'll raise the development money, rather than supply it out of our own pocket. Others in the team offer engineering skills, oil experience, marketing facilities, and so on."

"So you've a good chance."

Hamilton smiled again. "Socrates."

"Why?"

"He always made people answer their own questions." Hamilton lifted his heavy frame out of the chair. "I must go."

Fett walked to the door with him. "Derek, about Ellen-I hope you don't mind my saying…"

"No." They shook hands. "I value your judgment."

Fett nodded, and opened the door. "Whatever you do, don't panic."

"Okey-dokey." As he went out, Hamilton realized that he had not used that expression for thirty years.

Two motorcycle police parked their machines on either side of the rear entrance to the bank. One of them produced an identity card and held it flat against the small window beside the door. The man inside read the card carefully, then picked up a red telephone and spoke into it.

A black van without markings drove between the motorcycles and stopped with its nose to the door. The side windows of its cab were fitted with wire mesh internally, and the two men inside wore police-type uniforms with crash helmets and transparent visors. The body of the van had no windows, despite the fact that there was a third man in there.

Two more police bikes drew up behind the van, completing the convoy.

The steel door to the building lifted smoothly and noiselessly, and the van pulled in. It was in a short tunnel, brightly lit by fluorescent tubes. Its way was blocked by another door identical with the first. The van stopped and the door behind closed. The police motorcyclists remained in the street.

The van driver wound his window down and spoke through the wire mesh into a microphone on a stand. "Morning," he said cheerfully.

There was a large plate-glass window in one wall of the tunnel. Behind the window, which was bullet-proof, a bright-eyed man in shirtsleeves spoke into another microphone. His amplified words resonated in the confined space. "Code word, please."

The driver, whose name was Ron Biggins, said: "Obadiah." The Controller who had set up today's run was a deacon in a Baptist church.

The shirtsleeved man pressed a large red button in the white-painted wall behind him, and the second steel door slid upward. Ron Biggins muttered: "Miserable sod," and eased the van forward. Again the steel door closed behind it.

It was now in a windowless room in the bowels of the building. Most of the floor space was occupied by a turntable. The room was otherwise empty. Ron steered carefully onto the marked tracks and switched off his engine. The turntable jerked, and the van moved slowly through 180 degrees, then stopped.

The rear doors were now opposite the elevator in the far wall. As Ron watched in his wing mirror, the elevator doors parted and a bespectacled man in a black jacket and striped trousers emerged. He carried a key, holding it out in front of him as if it were a torch or a gun. He unlocked the van's rear doors; then they were opened from the inside. The third guard got out.

Two more men came out of the elevator, carrying between them a formidable metal box the size of a suitcase. They loaded it into the van and went back for more.

Ron looked around. The room was bare, apart from its two entrances, three parallel lines of fluorescent lights, and a vent for the air-conditioning. It was small, and not quite rectangular. Ron guessed that few of the people who worked at the bank would know it was there at all. The elevator presumably went only to the vault, and the steel door to the street had no apparent connection with the main entrance around the corner.

The guard who had been inside, Stephen Younger, came around to the left-hand side of the van; and Ron's codriver, Max Fitch, lowered his window. Stephen said: "Big one today."

"Makes no difference to us," Ron said sourly. He looked back at his mirror. The loading was finished.

Stephen said to Max: "The gaffer here likes Westerns."

"Yeah?" Max was interested. He had not been here before, and the clerk in striped trousers did not look like a John Wayne fan. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Watch. Here he comes."

The clerk came to Ron's window and said: "Move 'em out!"

Max spluttered and tried to cover his laughter. Stephen went around to the back of the van and got in. The clerk locked him in.

The three bank employees disappeared into the elevator. Nothing happened for two or three minutes; then the steel door lifted. Ron fired the engine and drove into the tunnel. They waited for the inner door to close and the outer one to open. Just before they pulled away, Max said into the microphone: "So long, Laughing Boy."

The van emerged into the street.

The motorcycle escort was ready. They took up their positions, two in front and two behind, and the convoy headed east.

At a large road junction in East London, the van turned onto the A11. It was watched by a large man in a gray coat with a velvet collar, who immediately went into a phone booth.

Max Fitch said: "Guess who I just saw."

"No idea."

"Tony Cox."

Ron's expression was blank. "Who's he when he's at home?"

"Used to be a boxer. Good, he was. I saw him knock out Kid Vittorio at Bethnal Green Baths, it must be ten year ago. Hell of a boy."

Max really wanted to be a detective, but he had failed the police force intelligence test and gone into security. He read a great deal of crime fiction, and consequently labored under the delusion that the CID's most potent weapon was logical deduction. At home he did things like finding a lipstick-smeared cigarette butt in the ashtray and announcing grandly that he had reason to believe that Mrs. Ashford from next door had been in the house.