Custom Fields – problems displaying individual keys

Hi

I want to be able to display individual values of keys within a post, but am having problems doing so. I’ve tried all the variations available on this forum.

Key: client
Value: Joe Blogg

The code I am using is:

<?php $client = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'client', true); ?>
<?php echo($client) ?>

However, nothing is displayed in the post.

When I use to test:
<?php the_meta(); ?>

It works fine, displaying “client: Joe Bloggs”, but this isn’t what I need (I only need the value). The code is absolutely positively within the loop.

Can anybody help? I’ve exhausted my limited knowledge of PHP!
Thanks, Max