'Rupert, you encouraged me to take out the mortgages. To go for the whole street! It was your idea. Now the street's worth less than the debt and falling. I'm fucked.'

'You're an adult, Jim. Are you saying that your decisions are my fault?'

'No, but . . .'

'But what, Jimmy? What are you saying?'

There was a pause.

'I'm saying that I'm currently fucked.'

'And what do you want me to do about it?'

'I want you to pick up the phone to your Hackney team and tell them to back off and give me some space.'

'And what excuse should I offer? That you're my mate?'

'Why do you need an excuse? You're the boss.'

'And how long do you think I'd stay the boss if it was known that I run the bank as a limit-free credit facility?'

'But that's exactly how you did fucking run it, Rupert!' Jimmy shouted. 'That's why I'm in this shit.'

'We don't give credit any more,' Rupert said. 'We've stopped lending and I'm afraid to say, Jim, that we want our money back. It's not personal and you have no right to make it so. A lot of people are in the same situation as you.'

There was nothing more to discuss.

'See you, Roop,' Jimmy said quietly.

'See you, Jim. Love to Mon.'

'Yeah. Love to Amanda.'

'Beatrice.'

'Oh yeah, that's right. Beatrice.'

Jimmy turned off his phone, cursing himself for wasting money on such a pointless call. He knew Rupert. Why had he expected any result other than zero?

Sitting in his office at the Royal Lancashire Bank, Rupert hung up the phone too. The bank might want its money back but Rupert knew that it wasn't going to get it. Not from Jimmy or from any of its thousands of defaulting debtors. In fact, the truth was it had never had the money in the first place, not much of it anyway, and its capital had long since been swallowed up in the mountain of bad debt that Rupert had generated, lending all those excitingly vast sums of non-existent money.

The bank was broke. He knew it and shortly so would the world.

A negotiated settlement Amanda had given up trying to be nice about her ex-husband in front of their children.

'Your father left us because he's a selfish, silly man who wanted to be with a girl half his age,' she would tell them, immune to the confusion and sadness this provoked in children who had been brought up to see their father as some sort of god.

'Why the hell should I lie?' Amanda said. 'I could tell them a lot worse. I simply refuse to bring them up in some fantasy that he still loves them really, so that he can waltz back into their lives when they're adults and blame it all on me. That's what happens, you know. The mum gets left with all the work and the hurt while the bloody shag rat becomes some jolly but remote figure who only has the fun bits and keeps dropping hints about mum never having been the easiest person to live with. They'll end up blaming me, I know they will, so fuck him. He's a bastard, a selfish bastard, and I will not lie to our children about it. If he had loved them as much as they thought he did, he would not have broken up their fucking home because he'd gone ga-ga over some bit of totty who no doubt never has a headache and sucks like a Hoover.'

Amanda had taken a firm and aggressive line from the start, but it got firmer and more aggressive with subsequent developments as the iron that Rupert had thrust into her soul hardened in its intensity.

First and to no one's surprise but Rupert's, it seemed, Beatrice managed to get herself pregnant. Monica and Lizzie had spotted that one coming a mile off. They'd whispered it to each other on the very first occasion that Rupert had introduced Beatrice to the gang.

'The girl's just besotted with Rupert,' Monica said, 'and she's terrified he'll eventually feel so guilty about his kids he'll go back to them.'

'If she knows Roop at all,' Lizzie replied, 'she'll know he doesn't do guilt.'

'Everyone does guilt in some way or other. It just depends what about,' Monica said. 'In the end, private stuff can get even the biggest bastard. Hitler did guilt. You know, over that niece who killed herself. Jimmy was watching a documentary about it on the History Channel.'

'They should call it the Third Reich Channel, that's all they ever seem to talk about. Robbo loves it.'

'Yes, well, Hitler had the SS put flowers on her grave every year.'

'Yes, Mon,' said Lizzie, 'but that was Hitler. We're talking about Rupert.'

Whether Monica or Lizzie was right about Rupert's capacity for human emotion and the likelihood of it leading him to return to his family, Beatrice had undoubtedly made the equation more complex by providing him with a second one.

'The bastard!' Amanda railed. 'A fucking baby. Our youngest is only five! I suppose he's imagining they're going to play together and that I'm going to pal up with fucking Beatrice for the good of the extended family! Well, fuck that! No. Seriously. Fuck that! I will never have the bitch or her brat near my kids.'

The news of the pregnancy had been hard enough for Amanda to take but when, in the light of the sudden and crippling credit crunch, Rupert attempted to renegotiate the terms of their divorce she went apoplectic. For here was an opportunity not only for outrage but, more importantly, for revenge.

The original divorce had been swift and businesslike. Rupert knew that whatever he did he was going to end up handing over half, so he might as well get on with it rather than rack up a million quid's worth of lawyers' fees pursuing a pointless exercise in avoidance. Amanda was not stupid and she knew her rights. They'd been married for thirteen years, they had two children and there was no way on earth she was going to let him fight her anywhere but London or LA, where the law was clear.

'I'm buggered for half so bring it on,' Rupert said to the lads over a boys' curry convened to discuss the issue.

'Quite right too, you bastard.' Henry grinned. 'Besides which, what difference does it make? Half of a squillion is still a squillion as far as I can see. You've still got more than you could ever possibly need.'

'I always need more, mate. That's why I get it.'

'Personally I think you should be screwed till the pips squeak,' David said.

'I am being, mate!' Rupert said with a wink and what he clearly believed was a rakish smile. 'Believe me, I am being.'

'Oh please!' Jimmy protested. 'You absolute wanker.'

'Did you ever think what this does to us?' David said.

'No, as a matter of fact I didn't. Not even slightly,' Rupert replied. 'What does it do to you?'

'Well, first and foremost it puts all our girls on the defensive. We have to defend ourselves for your shagging.'

'Not following,' Rupert said. 'What are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about months of "Don't you go doing it" and "If you do, bloody tell me so I can do it first."'

'He's right actually,' Henry said. 'The first thing Jane said to me when we heard was "Oh, I suppose you're jealous and now you want to run off with a twenty-year-old yourself." Amazing. I hadn't said a word. Not a bloody word, but she acted as if I'd been behind the whole thing.'

'The minute one bloke goes off with a younger girl,' David said, 'all the other girls get nervous and belligerent. That's what you've done to us.'

'Well, I'm sorry,' Rupert replied smugly, 'but I do not arrange my private affairs primarily to make your totty feel good about themselves.'

'We'd noticed,' David snapped.

'Anyway, it's all over now, thank God,' Rupert went on. 'Done and dusted, so everyone can forget about it. Amanda can have all the stuff, the houses, the cash, three of the cars and the art. I'll just keep the vintage Lamborghini, my golf clubs and the share options.'

'She'll see through that,' Henry sneered. 'RLB shares doubled in value last year and will again this year. By next year it'll be as if you'd never given anything away at all.'

'Property isn't doing so badly either,' Rupert replied.

'Not as well as the Royal Lancashire Bank, mate.'

'Nothing does as well as the RLB,' said Jimmy and Rupert conceded this point with a wry grin.

'Fortunately for me,' he said, 'Amanda loves the art. Let's face it, she chose it all. And besides, for some reason she has a sentimental attitude to the property.'

'For some reason?' Henry spluttered. 'You've brought up your children in it!'

'Yes,' Rupert agreed. 'That's probably it.'

And so the divorce had been finalized on a relatively equitable trade-off between Rupert and Amanda's considerable property portfolio, art investments and cash assets against their RLB and other banking stocks and shares.

'I know he's done better out of it,' Amanda told the girls, 'and I know he'll have found a way to hide some stock somewhere, but what can I do? If I know one thing about Rupert it's that he's good with money . . . Sometimes I wonder whether that's the only thing I do know about him. Anyway, as I see it I can accept a deal which gives me everything I love but let him rip me off. Or I can fight him, have him get belligerent, probably lose stuff I want and do you know what? In the end he'll still find a way to rip me off.'

Amanda took the children to the country. She needed distance and besides, there were a number of prep schools she wished to visit. The eight-year-old had got quite out of hand since his father had left and she felt he needed discipline. She opened the envelope containing the decree nisi on the train and surprised herself by having a little cry.

Rupert didn't cry. He punched the air, flexed his muscles in the bedroom mirror and flew Beatrice to Paris for dinner. His life was about to reignite! He was still hugely rich, he was no longer encumbered by numerous properties or the constant presence of children and he had a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend. He was a student once more! A multi-multi-millionaire student. He was in a position to grab his young girlfriend and party for years to come.

It was over dinner in Paris that Beatrice dropped her monumental bucket of piss on Rupert's parade.

'No, I won't have any champagne, darling,' she said, a look of nervous exhilaration crossing her features. 'I don't think I should . . .'

'Should?'

I'm four weeks late, you see.'

Rupert stared at her over his oysters, his face also nervous but with no sign of exhilaration.

'Late?' he stammered. 'You mean late as in late?'

Beatrice's reply was to giggle coyly.

'But you're on the pill!' Rupert snapped. 'You can't be pregnant.'

'Yes, well, you see, I was counting up and actually I think I forgot one or two . . . You're always so demanding when it comes to bedtime I get in a spin.' Beatrice's look was no longer nervous. There was a touch of defiance now. 'You are pleased, aren't you, darling? After all, we do love each other. You did say.'

Rupert didn't reply. Yes, he'd said he loved her. And he did. He loved her for the wonderful, unencumbered, sexy girl she had been.

Now she was going to be . . . a mum.

His second student life had lasted less than a day.

Beatrice smiled a big, innocent smile and poured herself a mineral water.

'What's really great is that it will only be five years younger than your youngest,' she said. 'They can be proper siblings.'

They returned from Paris the next morning and Rupert spent the following week trying to decide what to do. Could he pay her off? She absolutely refused to get rid of it.

However, events took a hand and Rupert found himself with more to worry about than whether he'd still fancy Beatrice when she had piles, reflux and intermittent bladder control. Out of the blue the financial sector went into free fall. What had happened to Caledonian Granite the previous year was now happening to the entire British banking system. All the banks, but most particularly the Royal Lancashire, were suddenly exposed as shouldering enormous debts, debts far, far greater than any assets they could possibly have. They had been lending money and investing in expansion at an insane rate and there was no real money to cover these reckless transactions.

Overnight, as the world came to understand that the foundations of the great banking institutions in which they had placed their trust were shuddering, the share prices collapsed. RLB shares, which had been valued at 5, were suddenly valued at 50p and then 15p. The repercussions of this for the ordinary citizen and for the British economy were horrendous. They were also pretty bad for the chief executive officer of the bank, who had recently placed all his divorce settlement in one leaky basket. Suddenly Rupert was broke.

Which was how his ex-wife Amanda found herself with the opportunity for both outrage and revenge. Rupert had written to her in an effort to renegotiate the settlement. His argument was that it had been based on an assessment of his value that had now proved to be entirely false. He wanted to redivide the assets he had previously held with Amanda in order to get some of the property, art, cars and cash and to give her half of his millions of 15p shares.

'Fuck you. Sue me,' was Amanda's four-word text in reply to this suggestion, which Rupert had made 'in a spirit of fair play and hoping to avoid incurring further lawyers' costs'.

Rupert had therefore applied to a judge, who began by asking an obvious question.

'Tell me, Lord Bennett,' he said sternly, 'had the shares which you chose to keep in the original settlement continued to climb in the manner that you had expected them to, would you now be offering Lady Bennett a bonus "in a spirit of fair play"?'

Rupert claimed that he might well have done exactly that but the judge did not believe a word of it. He ruled in favour of Amanda, who did not attend the hearing but celebrated in a restaurant nearby.

Beatrice was in court, her tummy already beginning to show.

Into the abyss The day had arrived for Toby to attend his new school.

Jimmy had talked a tough game to Monica about sending their son to Caterham Road, but in truth he was as miserable and scared as she had been at the prospect. He tried to overcome his fears, for his own sake as much as the boy's.

He told himself that the loathing and terror he felt as he approached the school with Toby on that first morning was all wrong. It was snobbery, it was prejudice and it was also probably a sort of racism. Jimmy was honest enough to recognize that the extraordinary and unfamiliar mix of ethnic groups that he saw milling about in front of the school scared him.

He just knew that this school was going to be hard as nails and that Toby would be lucky to learn anything amid the Babylonian babble of the twelve languages that were proudly listed on the much-sprayed and graffitied school sign.

Toby was clearly pretty scared too. He had slipped his hand from Jimmy's as they approached the gate, but up until that point he had been holding it tight. Starting a new school in the middle when everybody else has known each other for years is hard enough at the best of times, but when you're plummeting down the social scale as you do it you're bound to feel a bit intimidated.

'You'll be fine, Tobe,' Jimmy said. 'Just don't let on you went to a posh school. Remember, try and talk like they do on EastEnders.'

'I'm not going to say anything at all,' Toby replied.

'Anyfing,' Jimmy corrected him.

As they approached the school and the pavement became more and more crowded with milling parents and scampering children, Jimmy's worst fears seemed to be confirmed. Every face looked to him to be hard and forbidding. He struggled to avoid catching anybody's eye. He was convinced that every adult and child assembling on the pavement had him and Toby marked down as interlopers.

Ponces.

Posh bastards.

The gates were still locked when they arrived and so they were forced to stand about with the rest of the parents, carers and kids waiting to be admitted. Some boys were kicking a stone around, their dirty, scuffed shoes getting more so by the minute. Jimmy glanced down and saw that Toby was discreetly trying to scuff his own. Jimmy had polished them that morning. How stupid! He regretted it now.

The boys kicking the stone looked so tough, their shouts and laughter so loud and harsh. Jimmy felt a bit scared of them himself so he could only imagine what Toby was feeling. Two boys who must have been Year Six looked particularly intimidating. One of them even had patterns razored into his close-cropped hair.