institutions might react, whether they'll be supportive or simply dump the company for a bit of quick cash. You can discover how opinion is running amongst the analysts and financial journalists, not over some wine-sodden lunch at the Savoy Grill with a company chairman but back at their desks, where it matters. Takeover bids are wars, life or death for the companies concerned, and your job is to tell them whose guts are most likely to be spread over the floor at the end of the day. That information has great value.'
'And we charge a very good fee for such work.'
'I'm not talking thousands or tens of thousands,' he barked dismissively. 'That's petty cash in the City. The sort of information we're talking about allows you to name your own figure, if you make it work for you.' He paused to see if there would be a squawk of impugned professional integrity; instead she reached behind her to pull down her jacket, which had ridden up against the back of the sofa. As she did so she exposed and accentuated the rounded curves at the top of her breasts. He took it as a sign of encouragement.
'You need money. To expand. To grab the polling industry by the balls and to become its undisputed queen. Otherwise you go belly-up in the recession. Be a great waste.'
'I'm flattered by your avuncular interest.'
'You're not here to be flattered. You're here to listen to a proposition.'
'I've known that from the moment I got your invitation. Although for a moment there I thought we'd wound up on the lecture circuit.'
Instead of responding he levered himself out of his chair and crossed to the window. The gun-grey clouds had descended still lower and it had begun to rain. A barge was battling to make headway through the ebbing tide beneath Westminster Bridge where the December winds had turned the usually tranquil river into a muddy, ill-tempered soup of urban debris and bilge oil. He gazed in the direction of the Houses of Parliament, his hands stuffed firmly into the folds of his tent-like trousers, scratching himself.
'Our leaders over there, the fearless guardians of the nation's welfare. Government is necessarily a secretive business, full of shared confidences, of information which is restricted because its public release would be sensationalized or abused. And every single one of those bastards would leak the lot if it served their purposes. There's not a political editor in town who doesn't know every word of what's gone on within an hour of a Cabinet meeting finishing, nor a general who hasn't leaked a confidential report about the nation's security before doing battle with the Treasury over the defence budget. And you find me the politician who hasn't tried to undermine a rival by starting gossip about his sex life.' His hands flapped in his trouser pockets like the sails of a great ship trying to catch the wind. 'Prime Ministers are the worst,' he snorted contemptuously. 'If they want to rid themselves of a troublesome Minister, they'll assassinate him in the press beforehand with tales of drunkenness or disloyalty. Inside information. It's what makes the world go round. And it's not a matter to our masters of if you use it, but when.'
'Perhaps that's why I never went into politics,' she mused.
He turned towards her, to discover her seemingly engrossed in removing a stray hair from her sweater. When she was sure she had his full attention she stopped toying with him and hid once again inside the folds of her jacket. 'So what is it you are going to suggest I do?'
Once again his tongue rolled distractedly around his mouth, this time in search not of the elusive piece of breakfast but of inspiration and the appropriate words. He sat down beside her on the sofa and the proximity of his shirt-clad bulk squeezed any suggestion of levity from the air. His physical presence was, surprisingly to her fashion-conscious eye, indeed impressive.
'I'm going to suggest you stop being an also-ran, a woman who may strive for years to make it to the top yet never succeed. I'm suggesting a partnership. With me. Your expertise' - they both knew he meant inside information - 'backed by my financial clout. It would be a formidable combination.'
'But what's in it for me?'
'A guarantee of survival. A chance to make a lot of money, to get where you want to go, to the top of the pile. To show your former husband that not