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The convent is that of the Sisters of Abiding Comfort, a dwindling community of tough, cheerful souls. The nuns have their business in the city, with the desperate, but their home stands on the side of a bushy vale in a quiet eastern suburb.

Convent and playfully Gothic chapel: few people know of their existence. A circumstance that Robert Sharland does his best to perpetuate.

He's here again this morning, in the first pew but one. He likes the altar of white marble, the lilies and the candlesticks of blond brass. Enjoys the windows and the watery stains they impart, palest tincturings of lemon and rose. His bodyguard is armed and wired for sound and sits one row behind his principal, apparently unfazed by the dour Latin mass.

Bread and wine are at hand. Chalice and ciborium. The sacrament achieves its overcast plateau, and the priest says the occult words of consecration. How does Matthew have it? '"This is my body. But behold the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table."' Something like that, Sharland thinks. And Matthew's is a Rembrandtesque effect, with candlelight and gloom interpenetrating.

The nuns like Sharland to breakfast at the convent. Swap pleasantries with the visiting celebrant.

Two places have been set at one end of a long table. The room itself (a small refectory?) has plastered walls, a floor of reddish tiles. Sharland's bodyguard seats his employer, places a cellphone beside Robert's plate and retires to a chair just inside the door.

Stripped of his vestments now, dog-collared Father Conway makes his appearance. 'It's toast and jam and boiled eggs, I see. The sisters seem to want to feed us up.'

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'Good morning, Father.'

The smiley little priest's as plump as a sparrow. And layman and cleric are by no means strangers. 'You turned in a brisk performance this morning.'

'Did I now,' says Conway. 'Perhaps I'd counted the house.'

'You'll have noticed that I never take Communion.'

'I've noticed that your minder sometimes does.'

'I'm a product of my education, Vince. I believe in the mass without believing.'

'Surely not.'

'I believe in the mass. Without believing.'

'Well I wonder now how that can be. I do.'

A nun arrives with more triangles of toast. Orange juice in a stainless-steel jug. 'Shall I do you another egg, Father?'

'I think not, Sister Joan, on this occasion.'

Sharland waits until the nun has gone. Resumes his 'confession' in a somewhat cooler tone. 'I'm a powerful man, Vincent. I make things happen. My puissance flows out into the world to sink and saturate, penetrating systems from top to bottom.'

'Oh?'

'I trickle down. Through structures, institutions. I might be likened to the Holy Ghost.'

'Hubris. Blasphemy. To say nothing of the lesser sin of rank hyperbole.'

'I export and import and rake in dividends. Power begets wealth and wealth begets power. But among my hobbies is dealing in pictures. It's well within my competence to annoint struggling artists, and this it amuses me to do. I make their reputations and begin to sell their paintings for surprising new sums. I feather their nests while also upholstering my own. Does this make me virtuous, or am I merely acting out of self-interest?'

'Both. You're having a bob each way, like most of the rest of us.'

Robert's cellphone trills. He picks it up and jabs its Answer button. 'You've reached Sharland. Speak.'

The bodyguard approaches and addresses Conway. 'The Rolls will soon be brought to the side door, Father. Can we offer you a lift anywhere?'

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'That's thoughful of you, Taube.'

'Sell sell sell,' says Sharland. Talking of course to his dinky Nokia.