He has only two remaining chins and his cheeks are not so red. But his eyes are still burning with the same angry light under the dense grey hair. ‘Strikes me, Lewis, that if it’s reasonable to assume a double agent walks away with twice the money, this is going to make you sickeningly fucking rich.’ Quite comforting, it is, to detect the old sulphur in his voice. ‘Comparatively speaking, Marcus,’ Cindy concedes. ‘Comparatively speaking.’ Setting down his mug of Earl Grey, gazing with a genuine affection across the desk of dented beech-wood, which is far too big for this place. Here in the second bedroom, which serves as Marcus’s office, extra shelving has reduced the window to little more than a slit. Better than a caravan, mind. Marcus scoops up his manuscript, slams it in a drawer of the desk, Cindy raising his arms in protest, bangles jangling. ‘I’m not going to steal your ideas, Marcus, I do retain some ethics.’ ‘Really? Where’re you keeping them these days?’ Cindy smiles, eases his chair away from a stack of books.
