Too bad the boy wasn't a bit brighter. He rather relished the possibility of being found out. But that, of course, would defeat the entire purpose of the game. He did not want to have Vincent killed. Indeed, with no other candidates in sight he could not afford to. His fellow Prometheans would not allow him another chance to make good his promise.

The rain was clearly in for the day. The finale of Der Rosenkavalier came to its melancholy end. With a sigh, Sebastian heaved himself from his armchair and switched off the tape. He wasn't sleeping well. Lately his mind was filled with visions. Everything was coming to a head. Anger burned dully within him, and nothing, it seemed, not even the game, could assuage it.

IT TOOK a lot of phone calls to track down Caroline Buck-Smalley. She had dated Sebastian Wells during his Oxford days, and had been photographed (and labelled with a helpful caption) arriving at a charity auction with him, draped in a Union Jack. Caroline now handled PR for her mother's Knightsbridge dress business, and was reluctant to discuss anything else. Figuring that dishonesty was the best policy, Vince explained that he was writing an article about Sebastian for The Tatler, only to have her demand that a formal request for an interview be submitted in writing.

Vince argued that he would miss his deadline for the next issue, and just needed a couple of quick answers.

'Look, Mr Reynolds, I simply don't have the time to waste on this sort of thing,' she heatedly insisted, 'besides which I can tell you very little about Mr Wells, beyond the fact that he enjoys playing extremely childish, spiteful tricks on people and would rather spend his weekends with his pals figuring out stupid character-testing rituals than doing anything useful or constructive.' The line went dead.

Texts of the following speeches and monographs by the Hon. Sebastian Wells are available upon request:

A Question of Race: Nationality and Identity

Why There Must Always Be An England

Breaking the Jewish Power Ring

The Murder of Innocence: Tackling the Abortionists

Prometheus and Power: Responsibility to the People

He accessed the last article; he had read the others.

The name Prometheus is a Greek corruption of the Sanskrit word Pramantha, meaning a fire-drill. The symbol for this invention is the Swastika.

On the unseasonably fine evening of September the 23rd, Vince and Louie had an argument that started because Vince showed his friend photocopies of the speeches Sebastian had authored, and Louie got on his high horse and virtually accused him of collaborating with Nazis.

'You have to confront him now that you know all this,' said Louie. 'He advocates forced repatriation, for Christ's sake!'

'I thought you were in favour of quote lying till you're blue in the face unquote,' Vince explained.

'Yeah, but I changed my mind. He's a racist, and he has the money to back up his views with action.'

The more Louie shouted, the more Vince opposed him. Sebastian had plenty of good points. He behaved with more maturity than this nitwit spouting agitprop at him in his own flat, a decently-kept place, unlike Louie's bug-infested rubbish dump in Chalk Farm.

So they argued and got drunk and argued some more, and Vince explained that he would end the interviews with Sebastian when he was damned well good and ready and not a moment before, and Louie could tell him that he chain-sawed the heads off babies and ate them for all he cared, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

'Fine,' shouted Louie, 'but while your fascist pal acts as an errand boy for the far right, filling his speeches with Victorian rhetoric, stuff about shining shields of truth and honour and duty, he operates in the kind of corrupt port-and-stilton circles designed to keep wealth and privilege where it belongs – in the hands of the rich.'

'You're sounding like a really naff angry student, Louie,' he pointed out. 'Why don't you go and bury your rage in an unusual haircut? Go and have your nose pierced again.'

'I have no argument with you, man -'

'Or me with him. I could easily find something else to write about.'

'You're not very convincing,' Louie replied. 'I think he interests you because part of you secretly wants to be like him. Only you don't even realise it. Now, you have to decide whether you're gonna do the right thing.'

He knew Louie was right. The deadline for delivery of his manuscript was December the 10th, and he had most of the information he was likely to get from Sebastian.

'Esther's given me the telephone number of this guy she knows, a Doctor Harold Masters,' he explained. 'He lectures at the college. A couple of years ago he had a run-in with Mr Wells and his pals. Esther had a word with him and he said he'd be happy to talk to me. Besides, there's some other stuff I need to dig out.'

Guardian July 1996

… As the son of a lord who has long refused to declare his reputedly conflicting business interests, Sebastian Wells found himself ideally suited for withstanding interrogation by the police recently, when he was held in custody over his suspected involvement in a brutal murder upon a young black concertgoer. Upon being cleared of suspicion, Wells promptly sued the police for wrongful arrest and now looks set to win his case. – Jeremy Tyler

New Statesman February 1994

'… Traditional clubs don't follow through on the liberal trends set by university societies,' explained Dr Harold Masters, in his annual Edinburgh address. 'While it is not surprising to find a lack of ethnic diversity in such very British institutions, it is more disturbing to note the return of wealth and class restrictions.'

Societies like the hyper-secretive League of Prometheus remain so well protected by the silence of their members that it is impossible to gauge the club's influence on the city's financial institutions. Indeed, Prometheans make Freemasons look like chatterboxes. Yet for years this supposedly philanthropic institution has been dogged by rumours of its members' violent behaviour, its links to the world of organised crime and illegal government-sanctioned sales of arms. All press enquiries are met with curt dismissal. Arrogance and secrecy, it seems, are but two weapons in the league's power arsenal. – Jeremy Tyler

Guardian August 7th 1996

… Privately, though, questions are still being asked about how investigative journalist Jeremy Tyler came to be found dead at the foot of the Westminster Bridge steps after apparently slipping on them during a drunken altercation. The outspoken Tyler had recently conducted a series of acrimonious interviews with members of a society known as the League of Prometheus, and was seen in the presence of several league members on the night of his death.

The league's chairperson, the Hon. Sebastian Wells, insisted that none of his members were still in contact with Tyler, and the police chose to accept his statement at face value. No investigation ensued in the wake of Tyler's death, and no evidence of the journalist's recorded conversations with league members was found in his personal belongings.

With apparent ease Tyler's life's work has been erased – but perhaps this is merely the symptom of a larger public malaise.

With apathy so endemic in our nation, it is hard not to speculate that the dying century's conservatism has created a fertile new home for the spectre of Nazism to once more take root. The message is clear; messing with the Far Right's brash new boys can be hazardous to your health.