He sat in an upright chair at his desk, his head in his arms, as if he had fallen asleep over his work. But there was no work on his desk: just the phone, a glass, and an empty bottle. The bottle was small, and made of brown glass, with a white cap and a white label bearing handwriting-the kind of bottle chemists use to dispense sleeping pills.

For all his youth, the policeman acted commendably fast. He said: "Mr. Fitzpeterson, sir!" very loudly, and without pause crossed the room and thrust his hand inside the dressing gown to feel the prone man's heart. Kevin stood very still for a moment. At last the policeman said: "Still alive."

The young constable seemed to take command. He waved Kevin toward Fitzpeterson. "Talk to him!" he said. Then he took a radio from his breast pocket and spoke into it.

Kevin took the politician's shoulder. The body felt curiously dead under the dressing gown. "Wake up! Wake up!" he said.

The policeman finished on the radio and joined him. "Ambulance any minute," he said. "Let's walk him."

They took an arm each and tried to make the unconscious man walk. Kevin said: "Is this what you're supposed to do?"

"I bloody well hope so."

"Wish I'd paid attention at my first-aid classes."

"You and me both."

Kevin was itching to get to a phone. He could see the headline: I SAVE MINISTER'S LIFE. He was not a callous young man, but he had long known that the story which made his name would probably be a tragedy for someone else. Now that it had happened he wanted to use it before it slipped through his fingers. He wished the ambulance would hurry.

There was no reaction from Fitzpeterson to the walking treatment. The policeman said: "Talk to him. Tell him who you are."

This was getting a bit near the bone. Kevin swallowed hard and said: "Tim, Tim! It's me."

"Tell him your name."

Kevin was saved by an ambulance in the street. He shouted over the noise of the siren: "Let's get him onto the landing, ready."

They dragged the limp body out through the door. As they waited by the elevator, the policeman felt Fitzpeterson's heart again. " 'Struth, I can't feel nothing," he said.

The elevator arrived, and two ambulance men emerged. The elder took a quick look and said: "Overdose?"

"Yes," the policeman said.

"No stretcher, then, Bill. Keep him standing."

The policeman said to Kevin: "Do you want to go with him?"

It was the last thing Kevin wanted to do. "I should stay here and use the phone," he said.

The ambulance men were in the elevator, supporting Fitzpeterson between them. "We're off," the elder said, and pressed the button.

The policeman got out his radio again, and Kevin went back into the flat. The phone was on the desk, but he did not want the copper listening in. Maybe there was an extension in the bedroom.

He went through. There was a gray Trimphone on a little chipboard bedside unit. He dialed the Post.

"Copy, please… Kevin Hart here. Government Minister Tim Fitzpeterson was rushed to hospital today after attempting to commit suicide point paragraph. I discovered the comatose body of the Energy Ministry's oil supremo after he had told me comma in a hysterical phone call comma that he was being blackmailed point par. The Minister…" Kevin tailed off.

"You still there?" the copytaker demanded.

Kevin was silent. He had just noticed the blood on the crumpled sheets beside him, and he felt ill.

What do I get out of my work? Derek Hamilton had been asking himself this question all morning, while the drugs wore off and the pain of his ulcer became sharper and more frequent. Like the pain, the question surfaced at moments of stress. Hamilton had begun badly, in a meeting with a finance director who had proposed a schedule of expenditure cuts amounting to a fifty-percent shutdown of the entire operation. The plan was no good-it would have helped cash flow and destroyed profitability-but Hamilton could see no alternatives, and the dilemma had made him angry. He had yelled at the accountant: "I ask you for solutions and you tell me to close up the bloody shop!" Such behavior toward senior management was quite intolerable, he knew. The man would certainly resign, and might not be dissuaded. Then his secretary, an elegant unflappable married woman who spoke three languages, had bothered him with a list of trivia, and he had shouted at her, too. Being what she was, she probably thought it part of her job to take that kind of maltreatment, but that was no excuse, he thought.

And each time he cursed himself, and his staff, and his ulcer, he found himself wondering: What am I doing here?

He ran over possible answers as the car took him the short distance between his office and Nathaniel Fett's. Money as an incentive could not be dismissed quite as easily as he sometimes pretended. It was true that he and Ellen could live comfortably on his capital, or even the interest on his capital. But his dreams went beyond a comfortable life. Real success in business would mean a million-pound yacht, and a villa in Cannes, and a grouse moor of his own, and the chance to buy the Picassos he liked instead of just looking at reproductions in glossy books. Such were his dreams: or such they had been-it was now probably too late. Hamilton Holdings would not make sensational profits in his lifetime.

As a young man he had wanted power and prestige, he supposed. In that he had failed. There was no prestige in being chairman of an ailing company, no matter how big; and his power was rendered worthless by the strictures of the accountants.

He was not sure what people meant when they talked about job satisfaction. It was an odd expression, calling to mind a picture of a craftsman making a table from a piece of wood, or a farmer leading a herd of plump lambs to market. Business was not like that: even if one were moderately successful, there would always be new frustrations. And for Hamilton there was nothing other than business. Even if he had wanted to, he had not the ability to make tables or breed sheep, write textbooks or design office blocks.

He thought again about his sons. Ellen had been right: neither of them was counting on the inheritance. If asked for their counsel, they would certainly say: "It's yours-spend it!" Nevertheless, it went against his instincts to dispose of the business which had made his family rich. Perhaps, he thought, I should disobey my instinct-following it has not made me happy.

For the first time he wondered what he would do if he did not have to go to the office. He had no interest in village life. Walking to the pub with a dog on a lead, like his neighbor Colonel Quinton, would bore Hamilton. Newspapers would hold no interest-he only read the business pages now, and if he had no business even they would be dull. He was fond of his garden, but he could not see himself spending all day digging weeds and forking in fertilizer.

What were the things we used to do, when we were young? It seemed, in retrospect, that Ellen and he had spent an awful lot of time doing absolutely nothing. They had gone for long drives in his two-seater, sometimes meeting friends for a picnic. Why? Why get in a car, go a long way, eat sandwiches and come back? They had gone to shows and to restaurants, but that was in the evening. Yet there had always seemed to be too few free days for them to spend together.

Well, it might be time for him and Ellen to start rediscovering each other. And a million pounds would buy some of his dreams. They could have a villa-perhaps not in Cannes, but somewhere in the Sud. He could buy a yacht big enough for the Mediterranean and small enough for him to drive himself. The grouse moor was out of the question, but there might be enough left for one or two decent paintings.