He left the beer half-finished and got down from the bar stool and put on his coat. No sooner was he in the street than a shower of rain started up, fat drops spattering on the pavement like flung handfuls of coins. He stopped and took shelter in a shop doorway. Rain wasn’t good for his shoes, or his lightweight overcoat, which had cost him twenty guineas in Harrods. Had cost Percy, actually.

Poor old Percy. Free with his money, he was, when the mood took him. A regular fairy godmother. Terry cackled softly. That was a good one. An image popped up in his mind of Percy in a little red flouncy skirt and a sparkly tiara, fluttering in mid-air and waving a magic wand.

Then, suddenly, his mood darkened. What was he doing here, in this grey, godforsaken, rained-on city? He leaned his head out of the doorway and peered up. The clouds were breaking, and a blue sky was shining through in ragged, pale patches. He would call the fellow about the gun, tell him to meet him in The Hangman, do the business, and head back to the Smoke. What if Percy’s body had been found by now? There was nothing to tie him to the killing. He didn’t exist, as far as the rozzers’ records were concerned. He was the Invisible Man, was Terry.

He turned up the collar of his coat and set off in the direction of Gardiner Street. To hell with the shoes – they could look after themselves, or he could buy another pair, or go barefoot.

Go barefoot? Sometimes the weirdest notions came into his head. He pictured himself, walking along this city street, in his expensive coat and natty slacks, his hair wet, and nothing on his feet. No shoes, no socks, just those two pale, blue-veined things flapping along at the ends of his legs like some sort of sea creatures dragged up out of the deep. But why not? Who was to stop him? If people laughed at him, he would plug them on the spot, without a moment’s hesitation.

Except that – yes yes, all right! – he hadn’t got a gun.

He wondered what Percy’s feet were like by now, and his hands, and his pouchy old face. He’d look like a sack of corn tied around the middle with a rope, bulging and sort of shiny and ready to burst. Terry had seen drowned corpses. Terry had seen a lot of things.