He gave his friend a grin. “How’s tricks at the Foreign Office?”

“Much as usual,” Geraint said laconically. “The wars are small and the sterling deposits are stable, and the French aren’t any more or any less a pain in the rear than they are all the time.” He sank back into his seat, wrapping his luxurious Burberry coat around him as if warding off the cold. He looked tired, and had the beginning of gray circles beneath his eyes.

“Thank you for your help,” Michael said ingratiatingly. “I haven’t actually agreed to help,” Geraint pointed out. “I’m just putting you up for the night, as I recall.”

“I think you’ll be rather intrigued by the whole thing,” Michael coaxed.

“Sounds like a crock to me,” Geraint said in a rare lapse from King’s English. “Some barmy nutter with a Leonardo obsession.”

“A nutter with a Leonardo obsession who managed to paralyze Renraku’s CPU cores twice inside two hours,” Michael said as if it were of no more consequence than the usual British observations about the weather. Geraint startled, his sharp eyes turned on to Michael like those of a predatory sea eagle from one of his own estates.

“Did I hear that correctly?”

“You did,” Michael said. “I rather thought the details might be of some interest to you, given your business connections. Of course, I trust you to treat what I tell you with absolute discretion.” He didn’t wait for the deprecatory hand gesture with which Geraint reassured him. “But given your many business concerns, which even I am hard-pressed to keep track of, I thought it would be only fair to let an old friend in on the secrets.”

The Welshman grinned and let out a low, ironic chuckle.

“You cunning bastard,” he said approvingly. “You always were a manipulative devil.”

“I took lessons from observing you,” Michael responded coolly.

“So you want some help in return for letting me in on the deal,” Geraint mused. “Sounds fair enough. Actually, it’ll be a relief. Life’s been as dull as ditchwater here lately. Manchester’s been away touring the colonies, I mean the Commonwealth Nations, for what seems like forever, and absolutely nothing of any consequence has turned up during his absence. It’s been just the usual round of endless paperwork.”

Michael had not met the legendarily crusty Earl of Manchester. Geraint's superior at the Foreign Office, but from Geraint’s descriptions of him the man’s absence wasn’t cause for any great sense of loss. He looked down at the faded, scratched red box briefcase that Geraint’s chauffeur had lugged into the back of the Phaeton and considered that it could probably hold a very great deal of paperwork indeed, and said so.

“You’d think they could buy you a new one sometime,” he said.

“What?” Geraint sounded almost shocked. “This has been the property of the unfortunate junior minister in my position for the best part of seventy years. Its tradition, how can you say such a thing?”

“A more modern and comfortable one might not hold quite so much paperwork,” Michael observed dryly.

“Well, I think I’ll let Jenkins do it,” Geraint said dryly. “Little bugger needs some drudgework to keep him quiet. Naked ambition in an underling is such a lack of style, don’t you think?”

They laughed gently. The limo prowled its way toward the heart of Mayfair.

“This is very beautiful,” Michael said approvingly.

He was being honest. The Mayfair apartment must have cost several million to decorate and yet the total effect was modest and self-effacing in its classic simplicity. After years in New York Michael found the contrast striking. Geraint said nothing just shrugged off his coat and switched on the OC player. As he headed, almost in the same movement for the huge kitchen, the first few quiet voices filled the spacious room and the polyphony began to spiral around the first phrase.

Magnificat anima mea Dominium my spirit doth magnify the Lord…

Michael sat down wearily in the plushly upholstered sofa and let the timeless music build slowly around him, waiting for the exultant in Deo salutari meo of the introduction. He closed his eyes and smiled, peaceful and quiet.

He had just re-opened his eyes and was taking in some of the fine art on the walls by the time Geraint reappeared with a silver tray and coffee service.

“This is very good,” Geraint said as he poured the fragrant brew into the perfect porcelain cups. “Jamaican blue mountain. Costs the earth and they don’t produce much of it these days after that damn hurricane two years ago.”

“Always wanted to visit Jamaica,” Michael mused.

“I wouldn’t,” Geraint said sharply. “Murder rate ten times higher than New Orleans and an average life expectancy of thirty-four for indigenous males. Go to the Leewards or the Windwards if you want a Caribbean holiday.”

“It isn’t exactly a pressing concern right now,” Michael said with a smile as he lifted the cup to his lips. “Crikey, you’re right. This is good.”

“Well, here we are,” Geraint said. “Enough of that to get us through the night and I have nearly sixty opticals of Palestrina and Josquin, which should keep you happy.”

“Thank you,” Michael said again. The Welshman had an excellent memory for the likes and tastes of others and was an unfailingly generous host. “What about Dinah?”

“In Paris for another collection,” Geraint said slightly dismissively. “She’s a fashion writer.” His tone said one of them was probably a fashion accessory for the other; more likely both were. Michael did not press the point further.

“And Serrin?”

“I’m hoping he’ll be here tomorrow,” Geraint said. “The weather’s appalling on Lewis, but the forecast for tomorrow is better and he should be able to fly down. I thought we could have dinner here.”

“Sounds good to me,” Michael replied. “I may be sending him off on a wild goose chase, but I’ve got a whole caseful of arcane drek and he might be able to give me enough leads to come up with a psychological profile of our nutter. Our very talented nutter, I should probably add.”

Geraint smiled and sank an ivory-handled knife into the blue-veined Stilton cheese, extracting sufficient crumbly chunks to liberally coat one of the thin wafers just before the Magnificat reached its final Amen. There were a few moments of silence before the Kyrie of the following Mass rose gently from the small but powerful speakers secreted around the room.

“Port?” Suddenly Geraint’s look was different. There was an element of mischief on his angular, handsome face, a look that said, in effect, “I haven’t seen you in years. We may have work to do, and time may be pressing, and these may be very elegant surroundings, but we’re going to get smashed anyway, horribly hog-whimperingly smashed.” There was also the undercurrent of That way you’ll tell me everything I might be interested in.

“Which vintages are you currently recommending?”

“I thought we might start with the 2002 and work our way forward, although we could always start with the agreeably nutty 2033 tawny and work backward,” Gerajnt suggested.

Michael bit into the cheese-smeared cracker, wiped a crumb from the side of his mouth, and smiled back at his host. “Mix them all in a bucket and bring me a plastic straw,” he said.

“Peasant,” His Lordship laughed and set off for the mahogany cabinets on the far side of the apartment, “So, tell me what happened to Renraku.”

Michael waited for Geraint to return with the first bottle, the lead-foiled cork crusted into the neck, before giving him a copy of the chromalin.

“What the frag is this?” Geraint said.

“That’s our nutter’s signature. Now I’ll tell you what Renraku said he did, and then we should consider how we’re going to go about finding out what he actually did.” Michael got up and unlocked the first of the small steel cases he’d brought in with his suitcase. Geraint’s eyes widened at what he saw when Michael threw back the lid.