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noticing.’
    â€˜What about you?’
    â€˜I could lose my licence. You know I don’t have your type of contacts.’
    Harry looked around his opulent office again and said, ‘What exactly do you do in this fancy palace of yours?’
    â€˜I have a staff of ten; kids barely out of their pimples – managing investment trusts. I still do the old personal financial planning advice, if you’re ever interested.’
    â€˜Didn’t keep any of your old clients, then?’
    Parker leant forward in his seat and his hands rested on the desk, displaying gold cufflinks and a chunky diver’s watch. ‘Things change.’
    â€˜I thought you had dispensed with my services after what happened to McCaffity. All those years I didn’t hear from you.’
    Parker made a dismissive gesture with his hand as if trying to snatch a fly. ‘That wasn’t my fault you suddenly left the country.’
    â€˜Thanks to your Mr McCaffity. When I came back, you never returned any of my calls.’
    â€˜Mea culpa ,’ Parker nodded with guilt. ‘As I told you, things change and I stopped getting those losers coming through my door needing to do a runner. My business has gone in another direction.’
    â€˜And then you suddenly remembered me?’
    â€˜I thought you would be happy having something put your way again.’
    Harry’s face soured. ‘You make it sound like you’re doing me a favour.’
    â€˜Just forget about all that. Let bygones be bygones.’
    â€˜I don’t need anyone, particularly you, looking down your nose at me.’ Harry could hear his own voice echoing in his head. He knew he was shouting because he could see Parker flapping his hands to simmer down, but he wasn’t finished.
    â€˜Who the hell do you think you are?’ he snapped. ‘I don’t need handouts from anyone, especially from the likes of you.’
    â€˜Lower your voice for Chrissakes.’
    Harry held his breath and he could feel his heart beat slowing again. When he’d regained his composure, he asked ‘How did she come by you?’
    Parker puffed through his lips and said, ‘I was having tea with a client in Fortnum and Mason when she caught my eye at the table next to me. When my client left, she started chatting to me. She’d overheard me talking finance.’
    â€˜So you poured her a nice cup of tea and sold her a life policy.’
    â€˜I don’t sell insurance. But I did order another pot of tea.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜She seemed impressed by what I knew of shifting funds around the world and told me she was thinking of emigrating to Suriname.’
    â€˜Suriname?’
    He nodded. ‘We started talking about the finance of a move and she really started picking my brain. Suddenly it dawned on me what she was really up to and I told her it wasn’t easy to disappear off the face of the earth, just like that.’
    â€˜Sounds like a long conversation you had with her.’
    â€˜It was. She explained about her husband and why she had to get away with her son. I told her that if she wanted to do it right, she needed someone to fix it up for her, otherwise her husband would track her down. I said I knew what I was talking about because I’d seen desperate clients end up getting caught. The next thing I know she’s asking me whether I could help.’
    â€˜That’s when I popped into your head?’
    â€˜It’s what you do for a living, isn’t it? What’s bugging you? You’ll be doing the right thing helping her.’
    â€˜It’s just there’s a lot of help for women in her position nowadays and I’m getting this feeling –’
    â€˜Well don’t. The man’s a bastard of the highest order from what she says; terrorising her and her boy day and night. Treats her like a punch bag. He once held her upside down over the banisters and threatened to drop