David took a hackney to his half-brother’s house on Grosvenor Street. It was an imposing edifice. His part of the family was nothing if not high in the instep. Perversely, it always made him want to revert to thieves cant when he spoke to him. Not that they spoke much. A handful of conversations over the space of around ten years and none of them had ended well. His brother was his senior only by about five years, and he seemed to think that it gave him some position with him. It didn’t. He wasn’t interested in humouring Charnley in his apparent desire to play Head of the Family.
Charnley, it seemed, had been unaware of David’s existence until he attained his majority and had decided they should become acquainted with one another, which in simple terms meant that David should forget about
