been taken out to lunch at a place called the Paris Grill, where the steak and chips was served by waitresses in black negligees. He'd been amazed at how much the Brits could drink at lunch before returning to work, where, in the absence of sufficient foreign-exchange activity, they placed huge bets on how long the Pope or Emperor Hirohito was going to stay alive.
When it was confirmed that his currency trade had gone through, Duffy turned his attention back to Allied Royal. The share price had begun to rise - not dramatically, and with one or two blips, but with what looked like a steady underlying confidence. By late afternoon there was enough activity for him to be able to start making some more calls to obtain prices for puts and calls in the stock. He didn't know what part Veals might have played in the rally, and he would never ask, but when the day's trading was finished he was able to send a message to Veals's black mobile number: 'Rheumatism definitely easing. Expect full movement tmw.'
IV
Sophie Topping's taxi drew into Dover Street at seven o'clock. She'd arranged to meet Lance at 6.30 and some women from her book club at 6.45, so her timing, she felt, was just right.
She had never been to the auctioneers' headquarters before, though she'd seen it on the television news when a suave man in a double-breasted suit extracted PS10 million from an absent buyer for a smudged pot of Impressionist flowers.
Tonight, however, was a special gala and Sophie found herself giddy with pleasurable excitement. Here were no Van Goghs or Monets, no Old Masters or Cubists or Moderns; tonight, as the catalogue had it, was 'A unique artistic event'. The forty-two-year-old Liam Hogg had taken over the entire first floor of the auction house. Hogg, with the blessing of the Blank Slate Gallery in Stoke Newington, to whom he had remained brashly faithful through the boom years, had decided to 'turn art-world convention on its head'.
Sophie walked through the long downstairs lobby, past the coats, and turned to climb the marble stairs. She spotted Lance halfway up, talking to Vanessa Veals and Amanda Malpasse.
'Glad you could make it, Soph,' said Lance, looking at his watch.
Sophie wasn't listening; she was taking in what clothes the others were wearing. Both had gone to considerable efforts. Vanessa must have spent thousands on her outfit - not that money was of any consequence to the Vealses; but Sophie recognised the couture dress from a page in a fashion magazine and the shoes from a designer whose work she considered too delicate for her own sturdy ankles. The brassy handbag was another three or four thousand pounds' worth that would appear on Vanessa's arm perhaps twice in its life.
A waiter was offering cocktails of a violent blue, and Sophie opted for the safety of champagne. Amanda also had a new dress from the top end of a Knightsbridge rail and her hair had the slightly dry look of the salon about it. Both declined the morsels of food - raw shark, carpaccio of suckling pig or something equally scary-sounding to Sophie - that were offered on a Perspex tray.
The four of them mounted the stairs and entered the main gallery, which was crammed with people. Sophie's eye ran over the organdies and devores, the faux-fur and the fox, the taffeta and cashmere, the demure black cocktail dresses with a confidently simple row of pearls; the carefree pinks and golds with boucle curls and tailored waists; the knee-length slashed satin and two or three instances of carefully ripped denim. The men wore hand-finished suits - some with ties and some without, but none with the shine of chain-store cloth. The only outfits that had cost more than the Savile Row three-pieces, in Sophie's rapid tour d'horizon, were the rebel biker outfits with the pre-distressed boots. The guests were packed in so tight that it was hard to see the art. Sophie sighed happily. She felt the investment in her own dress and shoes had been not only justified but had proved essential. Over the lovely, lively throng she could make out a sort of nimbus, where the muted beams from tracked ceiling lights bounced off the gold and diamonds below to form a thin, vapid haze.
Liam Hogg and his studio had, according to the press release, been 'working round the clock' for six months to fill the august space, through which had passed the work of Rembrandt