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particular branch of the business had walked in carrying a box of bent carbon paper, he’d have been out on his arse and his cards slung out into the street after him one and a half seconds later. I had two or three businesses like that one.
    It was in the London Bridge branch I met Jean. She was one of the workers. Harris was leaving. Paul Edmonds was in charge of the overall business and he promoted Jean and not only because her promotion was strictly in order. It didn’t do him any good though because in due course I met Jean and after that he walked around with pennies in his eyes so nobody’d tell me he’d even looked at her.
    Of course, it’s not like they’d have you believe in the programmes on the box. You don’t go down to the nearest watering hole after you’ve made your first million and tell the first clippie you set eyes on how you got it. Nor do you talk before you make it … otherwise you don’t. Witness all those sad stories you read about in the newspapers where they were dead unlucky not to hang on to their wages for more than five minutes between stretches.
    When I met her, Jean was living in Orpington. She had a house there. The divorce was under way and the house was to be part of the settlement. At the time he was in California wearing flowered shirts and rediscovering his misspent youth in singles bars. He’d said he wanted to be free. He’d played the field before, of course, but that wasn’t the same as freedom. They’d married too young, he’d said. When I met her, when we got to talking that way, she told me that she’d never get over him, not ever. They’d loved each other so much it hadn’t seemed possible it could have happened, she told me.
    Well, that was all right. I wasn’t in any particular hurry. She was thirty-three, and time was on my side, not hers. I took her out, the way bosses take out their employees, notgiving her the Kilburn Rush. Other more highly paid employees of mine could satisfy my transitory urges, and on office time. As it happened it was three months before I discovered her hair was not its natural colour, and it was two years before she discovered who I was. That was a week before we got married and by that time it didn’t matter any more. There had been other difficulties, though.

THE SMOKE
    C OLLINS CAME ROUND A couple of hours later and he didn’t like it. But how could he do the other thing?
    He sat down on the sofa, his fat backside causing ripples of contained displacement on the hide’s surface. I poured him some of the champagne that was left, then I sat down on the sofa opposite and looked at him. He was as neat and well dressed as ever.
    We both drank.
    “How’s Jean?” Collins asked.
    “Fuck that,” I replied.
    Collins drank some more champagne.
    “Why didn’t you get in touch before?” I said. “Before all that shit started going down at the station?”
    “It was difficult. There was nothing I could do without drawing attention to our relationship.”
    “Don’t do a number on me, Dennis. Everybody down there knows what our relationship is. That’s what you’re there for.”
    “That’s the point. After Arthur spoke to Farlow they just stood around waiting to see what I’d do. Collar Terry or phone you. They were running a book on it. Whatever they know , I had to collar Terry so that justice was seen to be done. Otherwise it would have given Farlow the opportunity to talk to the Commissioner.”
    I had a few thoughts about Farlow.
    “Ever thought about squaring Farlow with us?”
    Collins shook his head.
    “I don’t trust him.”
    “We could offer him more than the Shepherdsons do.”
    “He wouldn’t. It’s a matter of principle. Besides …”
    “Besides?”
    “If he worked for you, either you or him or the both of you might conclude that I was superfluous.”
    “How could I ever arrive at that conclusion, Dennis? If I ever gave you to the papers you wouldn’t leave me out of your memoirs just for old