He reached up and undid the catch on the window and managed to slide it open on the third attempt. He leaned out onto the sill and managed to catch sight of them again just as they cut across the flow of pedestrians at the bottom of the street and entered the brightly lit foyer of the Caledonia Hotel.

Maxwell pulled his bulk back into the room and shut the window. He turned, a broad smile of satisfaction puckering up his flabby cheeks. “Oh-ho-ho!” he said out loud, “now what do we have going on here?”

He took his jacket from the back of the chair and, as quickly as possible, squeezed his way to the door of the office, flicking off the switch of the kettle as he passed. He glanced momentarily at the document on his desk before killing the fluorescent lights and closing the door behind him.

“Can I help you, sir?” asked the bright-faced receptionist of the Caledonia Hotel.

“Yes, I do believe you can,” Maxwell replied cheerfully, as he glanced quickly over to the seating area in the foyer, just to make sure that the two persons in question were not present. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, have a Mr. Dan Porter staying here at the minute, would you?”

“If you could wait a moment, sir, I’ll just check for you.” The girl typed quickly on the keyboard of her computer and then ran her finger down the screen. “Yes, we do, sir.” She put a hand on the receiver of her telephone. “Would you like me to put you through to his room?”

Maxwell waved a hand dismissively. “No, don’t worry. I think I’ll just surprise him. I’m an old friend of both Mr. Porter and Mrs. Trenchard. I take it that she’s staying here as well?”

The girl consulted her computer once more. “Yes, she is.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. I haven’t seen either of them for so long.” He leaned forward on the top of the high reception desk and smiled conspiringly at the girl. “I know it’s probably against company policy, but you wouldn’t just give me their room number, so that I could go up and give them a bit of a surprise.”

The girl bit at her lip. “I’m not supposed to, sir.”

Maxwell stood away from the desk. “Of course. I quite understand.” He made sure the girl saw that he was pondering the dilemma. “Would it be possible then to buy a bottle of champagne for them, so that I could send it up to their room?”

“Of course it is,” the girl replied with a smile before looking back down at her computer screen. It was she who leaned across the desk this time. “Their room numbers are three twenty-one and three twenty-two,” she whispered to him.