It is better than a spy novel, because a spy novel leaves evidence.

What she gave him — and I will set out later exactly what it was worth, because the number is knowable and it is not the number people guess — was not secrets.

It was a calendar.

It was who I was talking to and how often and how urgently, which is the single most valuable thing there is when two firms are circling the same asset, and which cannot be obtained any other way without breaking a law that leaves a trail.

At about eleven twenty the old man got up and went out of frame, and I heard, faintly, a kettle.