With a shrug, Babe played e-4 and Ned instantly replied by pushing his own king’s pawn forward to meet it. Babe moved his knight out to f-3 and Ned moved a hand to his queen’s knight, as if resigned to an Italian or Spanish game. Then he dropped the hand back with a resentful tut and started to think. He took five minutes over his second move, the dull, seemingly ultra-defensive and amateurish d-6 that marks the French Defence. Babe continued to rattle out his pieces in the standard way and Ned haltingly replied. His heart beat faster and faster as each move repeated the pattern that he had planned the night before, developing into the very line of the Winawer that he had prepared. A moment came when Babe had to play with extreme accuracy to avoid a trap that Ned knew would cost him the loss of an active pawn. Babe stopped himself from playing the quick and obvious move and Ned, his head down, could sense in his field of peripheral vision, that Babe’s head had turned up to look at him. Ned did not shift, but continued to frown over the board, not revealing anything when Babe, avoiding the mistake, played the only correct move possible. Ned had not banked everything on a cheap tactical trap as he might have done two weeks earlier. In fact, he would have been disappointed if Babe had fallen for it. He knew that his position was good, and that was all that counted.

After an hour of fraught and completely silent play, Babe found himself a pawn down and having to marshal unconnected pieces to avoid all manner of tactical horrors. When a position is won, dozens of attacking combinations, traps and spellbinding sacrifices present themselves to the player on the winning side. Ned was busy considering a spectacular sacrifice of his queen that he believed would force a checkmate in five or six moves, when Babe knocked over his king and gave a rich, low chuckle.

‘Outplayed from pillar to post, you devious son of a mountain whore.’

‘You resign?’

‘Of course I resign, you dastardly bog and vice versa. My position is so full of holes it’s a wonder the board doesn’t fall to the floor. You planned this, didn’t you, boy? From the first petulant pout of the lip to the last maddening stutter. Oh, you’re wicked. Wicked as whisky.'

Ned looked up anxiously. ‘But the chess, it wasn’t all tricks and psychology was it? I mean, the pure chess was good too.'

‘Lad, there is no such thing as pure chess. There’s good chess and there’s bad. Good chess takes in the breath of your opponent and the dip of his head as much as depth of his mind and the placing of his knights. Good chess cares about the way you move a piece just as much as the square you move it to. Did you know you played a Smyslov Screw just now? You did, you know. A real life Smyslov Screw.’

‘A what?’

‘Vasilly Smyslov, world champion from the Soviet Union. I saw him play, as it happens. A master of the endgame and as wily a fox as you’d care to be matched against. He had a way of setting a piece when he made a move and screwing it into the square, pressing down on it and slowly twisting it as though to fix it there for ever. Put the fear of God into his opponents, that simple little trick. You did the same just now when you moved your rook to the seventh. But more than that, you understand the greatest chess secret of all. The best move you can ever play in chess is not the best move. No, the best move you can ever play is the move your opponent least wants you to play. And that you did time after time. You knew that I hate the turgid tactical hell of the French, didn’t you? I never told you, but you sensed it. Oh my God boy, I could hug you I’m so proud.’

Ned saw that tears were falling down Babe’s face.

‘It’s all thanks to you,’ he said.

‘Fuff to that! What is it, nine … no, eight and a half weeks since you first pushed a pawn in my direction. Look at you, look at what you can do with those sixteen pieces of cheap wood. Did you ever know your mind could think so deep and play so mean? Did you? Did you? Tell the Babe you’ve amazed yourself!’

‘Babe, I’ve amazed myself,’ said Ned. ‘I don’t know how I did it. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. It’s you. You did it for me.

‘I did nothing. Nothing at all, but let you understand the power of your own mind. There isn’t a player in the world who could call you a patzer or a rabbit now. The great ones will beat you, for sure, but you’ll never disgrace yourself over a checkerboard, not if you live as long as me. This calls for a marvellous toast to be drunk.’

Ned laughed. ‘I’ll whistle for Rolf, shall I?’

‘You think I’m joking. Reach into your mind and draw out your favourite drink. What is it? Are you a whisky man like myself, or does your Harrovian favour the great deep wines of Bordeaux? Is it maybe the gossiping fizz of champagnes fit only for tarts and scoundrels that pleases you? Myself, I’m hankering for the salt oil of a Bunnahabhain, that mysterious Other of the Islay malts. I’ve its queer squat bottle in my hand now and I’m snagging my nails on the lead about its bung… hey now! What have I said to upset you?’

Tears were dropping from Ned’s chin onto the chessboard.

‘It’s nothing, nothing…, only you see I’ve never really had a chance to drink anything. My favourite drink is … used to be… just a glass of cold milk.’

A memory of Oliver Delft opening the refrigerator door crashed into Ned’s mind and he gave a gulping sob.

‘Tss!’ Babe hushed him urgently. ‘Don’t let your distress be seen. I’m sorry Thomas, truly sorry. I had no idea in the world. My stupid tongue, it fancies itself to have a pleasing way with it. The women used to think me a seducer with words and sometimes I play up to the memory of that. It’s my one last vanity in this place of wined minds and in my vulgar haste I took you to a place you have forgotten to visit. But never mind that now. The day will come when you’ll be pleased to go back there.'

‘No!’ said Ned forcefully. ‘I mustn’t. I absolutely mustn’t. There are things in my past that I still don’t understand properly and Dr Mallo says…’

‘Dr Mallo says! Take comfort in knowing that this is a man who is capable of saying, “It’s checkmate in four unless I’m much mistaken.” Dr Mallo, he don’t know shit from sugar and you can’t pretend it isn’t so. He has a soul of pus and the mind of a rotted turd. He is a failure and not a word he says can come near to you.

‘He’s a failure? Then what does that make us?’ choked Ned. 'Whaton earth does that make us?’

‘Well that’s something we must decide for ourselves, Thomas. Now, Rolf is walking by, heave a giant sneeze into your handkerchief as if you’d caught a mote of dust in the sunlight.’

The last words that Ned said to Babe that afternoon were, ‘Will you teach me, Babe? Teach me everything you know. Just as you did with chess. Teach me all the science and poetry and philosophy you can. Teach me history and geography. Teach me music and art and mathematics. Will you? You know so much and I know so little. I was supposed to have gone to Oxford, but…’

‘Well, you were saved that at least,’ Babe had replied, ‘so there’s hope yet. Yes, I’ll teach you, Thomas. We shall tread the wide path of philosophy as we trod the narrow path of chess and who knows what we shall discover about ourselves as we go along the way?’