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secretive smile. ‘You’ll understand when I give you a name. Then you keep that name to yourselves. You don’t tout it at dinner tables. You don’t leave it in a notebook in the office. You don’t stick it up on a computer screen. You don’t use it on the office phones. You don’t trot it out to wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, favourite dogs - you’ve both got that? Radio silence.’
    He gave them both an impressive glance. ‘You work together on this. You start today, and you report to me - to me and no-one else, under any circumstances. UnderstoodT
    ‘Understood, Nicholas,’ Gini replied, thinking what a selfdramatist he was.
    She caught an answering glint of mockery in Pascal’s eyes. Then Jenkins came out with the name - and the glint of amusement vanished. Pascal’s face became alert. Like Gini, he started to pay attention, and at once.
    ‘John Hawthorne.’
    Jenkins leaned back in his chair watching them. When he was sure they were suitably surprised and intrigued, he continued. A suffle played around his lips.
    ‘John Symonds Hawthorne - and the fabled Lise Courtney Hawthorne, his wife. Or, to put it another way, his Excellency the United States Ambassador to the Court of St James. The American ambassador, and his wife.’ He lifted his glass in a mock toast.
    ‘The perfect couple, or so we’re always told. Except, as I know, and you know, my dears, there’s no such thing as the perfect couple.’
    Gini registered the name, and the implication - and was shocked. She began to concentrate. She had a reporter’s memory, and so did Pascal. As the filing cards in her mind started to flick, she saw his expression also become intent. Names, dates, connections, rumours, new and old hints. She saw her own mental process mirrored, checking and re-checking, in his eyes.
    Nicholas Jenkins would have liked a more dramatic reaction. He liked to stage-manage his own effects. Now, as if deciding to keep his revelations in reserve, to make them wait, he leaned forward, suddenly businesslike.
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    ‘Tell me what you know/ he said. ‘Then I’ll tell you what rye heard. Pascal, you first.’
    Gini watched Pascal closely. The Pascal she once knew did not care much for ambassadors and their society wives - but this Pascal *pparently did.
    Nery well/ Pascal began. ‘Politics in the blood. Three gener-4tions of public service at least. The Hawthorne money comes *om, steel and shipyards originally. The younger brother - Prescott
    runs the companies now. They were ranked sixth in America on the last Forbes list. John Hawthorne is aged around forty-six, forty-seven-‘
    ‘Forty-seven,’ Jenkins put in. ‘He’ll be forty-eight in a couple of weeks.’
    ‘Educated at Groton, then Yale. Went through Yale law school.’ Nscal paused. ‘He served in Vietnam, which for a man of his
    16ckground makes him unusual, maybe unique.’
    ,-Not a draft-dodger. Unlike others we could all mention . Y-`‘Indee!d-‘ Pascal frowned. ‘What else? There’s his father, of ;,&urse. Stanhope Symonds Hawthorne, known to his enemies
    SS. A not inappropriate nickname, either, given his politiviews. Stanhope’s still alive though he must be eighty at ‘_,466t-The legendary wheeler-dealer, the man at the heart of the
    1”cal machine. He’s semi-paralysed now, I gather, from the ‘WM stroke. In a wheelchair. But he still lords it over that vast ,’,’.place they have in New York State.,
    ?6S. S. Hawthorne/ Jenkins chuckled. ‘Old SS. Kind of a cross een King Lear and a Nazi. Not the easiest of parents. What i.,ut the motherT
    Aong dead.’ Pascal shrugged and lit a cigarette. ‘She was killed car crash years back, when Hawthorne was still a child, aged t eight. The father never remarried. He ruled the dynasty ehanded from then on.’
    d the wife? John Hawthorne’s wifeT Jenkins put in silkily. e famous Lise? She’s very beautiful, of course, Related to orne, I think, but distantly. Second cousins, third perhaps
    have to check. They