Gidman waved at it, the gates swung silently open and he drove sedately up a long gravelled drive winding through an avenue of plane trees towards an imposing Victorian mansion in dull red brick that not even bright sunlight could render welcoming.

‘This the family estate then?’ said Maggie. ‘How long has your father had it?’

‘Ten years. And it’s hardly an estate.’

‘Whatever. Must have been quite a change relocating here from the East End.’

‘It’s still in Essex,’ said Gidman, a touch defensively.

‘Stayed true to his roots then,’ she observed blandly.

At the front door a woman in a headscarf and slacks, on her knees to polish the already mirror-like brass letter box, looked up with a toothy smile and said, ‘Dave, my lovely, now this is nice. We wasn’t expecting you.’

Maggie assumed she was a domestic with enough service to give her familiarity rights till Gidman stooped and kissed her and said, ‘Hi, Mom. This is Ms Pinchbeck, who wants to work for me.’

‘Rather you than me, ducks,’ said the woman. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘And you, Mrs Gidman,’ said Maggie.

‘Call me Flo,’ said the woman. ‘In you go. I expect you’re dying for a cup of tea.’

Maggie’s pre-interview researches had told her that Flo had been a sixteen-year-old waitress in a London café when Goldie met her. By all accounts, it had been a marriage few on either side had approved and even fewer had forecast would prosper. Yet here she was, nearly half a century later, a bit plumper but with her old East End accent unrefined. ‘And still doing everything around the house,’ her son proclaimed proudly. ‘She gets some help with the cleaning these days, but she’s in total charge of the kitchen.’

The only live-in staff, Maggie later discovered, were Goldie’s old assistant, Milton Slingsby, and Sling’s nephew, an out-going young man called Dean who controlled the gate and other house security from a hi-tech office just off the entrance hall.

Already at this first visit Maggie was finding her expectations of baronial pretentiousness disappointed.

Goldie Gidman, in his late sixties, was as imposing a figure as his house, but a lot more welcoming. He had aged well, his lean muscular frame was supple rather than sagging, and the contrast between his vigorous white locks and almost black skin was something a lot of women might find very attractive.

To his son he said, ‘Hope you haven’t been spewing gravel over my lawn with that Panzer of yours.’

Maggie Pinchbeck he greeted with grave courtesy and sat there quietly observing her as Flo fussed about with teacups and home-made chocolate sponge.

Satisfied at last, Flo withdrew. She had done her job well, thought her son. If you came to see Goldie with expectations of being confronted by a jumped-up yardie, five minutes of exposure to Flo made you do a rethink.

He sat back to watch the fun.

‘Dave says you got some questions to ask me, Miss Pinchbeck,’ said Goldie.

She didn’t hang about.

‘How did you make your money, Mr Gidman? In the beginning, I mean.’

‘Like most entrepreneurs, started with a little, invested wisely till I’d got a lot.’

‘Were you ever a loan shark?’

‘I did spend time in the personal credit business, yes.’

‘You mean, you were a loan shark?’

‘A loan shark being someone who loans out money to poor people at exorbitant interest rates and terrorizes them if they renege on repayments?’

‘That sounds a reasonable definition.’

‘No, I wasn’t one of them. My father was what is now called a community leader. Back then it just meant his reputation for good sense and honesty led other West Indian immigrants to turn to him for help and advice.’

‘You saying you were a community leader too?’ interrupted Maggie.

Goldie Gidman smiled.

‘Not me. I was the first black yuppie, before there were white yuppies, I make no bones. But I loved my pa and when he told me members of our community found it difficult to get credit through the usual channels, I organized a neighbourhood credit club. Folk could borrow small sums on easy terms for purposes approved by the club’s advisory committee. This way they kept out of the jaws of them loan sharks you talk about.’

‘So where do all the rumours that you were one of the sharks come from?’

Another extremely attractive smile.

‘Back then, Miss Pinchbeck, half a century ago, things were very different in Britain. Black people were expected to know their place. Physically, that place was usually a slum. Professionally it was a low-paid manual job. Sexually it was with their own kind. You saw a black man who complained about living accommodation, a black man who understood how money could be made to work, a black man who married a white girl, what you saw was an uppity nigger who needed to be put back in his place. He makes money, it must be ’cos he’s a crook. He marries out of his race, that’s because like all black men he has this insatiable lust to bang a white woman. As for the white woman in question, everybody knows that she has to be a whore who’s turned on by the thought of his eighteen-inch bone. I hope I don’t shock you, Miss Pinchbeck.’

‘No, Mr Gidman, you don’t shock me. So all the rumours about your early career are malicious? But weren’t you investigated by the police?’

‘All the time! Malice don’t dry up. Like floodwater, it can’t find one way of getting under your defences, it looks for another. If it can’t get under, it just mounts up, looking either to come in at you over the top or to break through by sheer pressure alone.’

‘You sound bitter, Mr Gidman.’

‘Not for myself. I’ve fought against it for too long. I’ve got its measure. In fact, I thought I’d won the battle a few years ago. But then my son comes of age and begins to make his mark in the world and suddenly the floodwaters see what looks like a breach. The rumours start again. But I’m not the target now. I’m out of reach. They tried everything they know to blacken my name, but you check the records, Miss Pinchbeck. I have no convictions for anything. Not surprising, as I never got charged with anything. My business accounts have been picked over by people more picky than hens in a coop at feeding time, and none of them ever found a single decimal point out of place.’

‘So why are the rumours so persistent?’

‘Like I say, because of David here. Me they can’t touch because they need proof to touch me. But they don’t need no proof to harm David. Let the rumours grow strong enough and they will do the trick. Look at him, people will say, throwing his money around to buy advantages for himself. And we all know where that dirty money came from. You hear what I’m saying, Miss Pinchbeck?’

‘Yes, I do, Mr Gidman. But I’m wondering why you’re bothering to say it to me.’

Now at last she’d asked a question Dave the Third was interested in. He couldn’t believe that Pappy was letting this chit of a girl get away with her impudence. His father’s answer was even harder to believe.

‘I’ll tell you why. Because my boy needs taking care of. He don’t like me saying that, but he can pull faces all he wants, it’s the truth. I’ve been out there in that world and I know what it’s like. He’ll find out eventually, but I’d like him to find out without too much pain. I haven’t worked hard all these years and put up with all the crap I’ve put up with to sit back and see my son suffer the same. He needs someone like you, Miss Pinchbeck. That’s why I’m talking to you.’

‘I think you are mistaking me for someone else; I’m not a bodyguard!’

‘Bodyguards I can buy ten a penny. You’re the kind of guard he needs the kind of places he goes, the kind of people he meets. I know, I’ve had you checked out. No need to look offended. I bet you’ve spent a bit of time checking me out too-am I right?’

‘I did do a bit of checking, yes.’