‘Well, he’s actually there because he is suffering from – er – damage to the rear quarters; he and some boyfriend got a bit carried away together.’ Arthur grinned. It was an unusually fruity tale for him. ‘I think he’s a bloody liability that man; so does everyone. But that’s the only one I have for you today. Since you moved on to grander places, I have been suffering from a serious lack of information!’

Arthur was referring to my previous assignment, a massive study of the staff of MI5. With a few breaks for ‘quickie’ jobs every few months, the assignment had taken me the best part of five years. During this time, Arthur and I traded a great many tales. It was a curious relationship we had developed, based on scandal that we could not pass on beyond the walls of the room, told through mouthfuls of Turkish Delight.

‘That assignment was a damned sight simpler,’ I said. ‘I don’t like this one at all. There’s something about it – I don’t know quite how to describe it – I just don’t feel that, whatever I’m doing, I’m really making any progress. Just when I think I’m getting somewhere, whatever I’m onto dries up. It’s almost like chipping away at a glacier with a hammer: take a bit off here, a bit off there, but it’s not making any difference, not stopping the damn thing from advancing. Operation Angel, whatever it is, is big, damned big; it is scheduled to take place on 4 January, and it is now 14 December. Three weeks, and right now, where are we? Bloody nowhere.

‘I reckoned I had it all figured out after I stopped McEliney in his car. Put the Ring of Bells pub under a microscope and wait for ginger-haired Mick to turn up; follow him, bug him, and between him and Whalley, we’d get to the pot of gold. I’ve drunk in that damn pub every night for the last three weeks, chatting up the thick-arsed locals until I’m blue in the face, waiting for Mick to come – then arriving home with Guinness all over my breath and trying to persuade Gelignite I’ve been working hard – Then I get a phone call last night: the police have found him on an abandoned building site with a bullet in his head; the bullet is from the same gun that shot McEliney dead two days before. Someone’s doing a damned good job of tidying up their back yard.’

Arthur nodded. ‘It’s a familiar pattern – seen it many times before – eliminating unwanted witnesses before the stunt is pulled.’

‘I think we’re going to need one hell of a lot of luck in the next three weeks,’ I said.