Fifeshire’s ace agent had, however, little desire to be the most admired man in the graveyard, and for that reason I kept more than a wary eye open whenever I went to see him. I walked in to the familiar room, and he stood up behind his desk, and stretched out his massive hand. It was the kind of hand that leaves delicate ladies who shake it with speechless smiles on their faces, while their cheeks flush bright red, and they transfer their weight from one foot to the other for several moments, until the numbness in their hand subsides and the full strength of the agony hits them; then they let out a short, sharp, but elegant and restrained, ‘Owww’.

I was prepared for his clamp, and braced my hand against it; he held my hand for a few seconds, shaking it hard, and just at the moment at which the knuckles were about to crumble to dust, he mercifully let go and waved me to sit down. Beside his desk was a twenty-six-inch television monitor, wired to a video-cassette player. They had been put there on my instructions.

‘How are you, Flynn?’ he asked.

‘A bit better than last week,’ I replied. It was last week that I had reported that I was bored stiff watching Whalley do nothing. I wasn’t bored any more.

Fifeshire looked wryly at the monitor. ‘How kind of you to be concerned I might miss Coronation Street.’

‘I know you like to be kept informed,’ I said.

‘Well I wish more people did,’ he said. He threw a copy of the morning’s Times across the desk top. ‘Did you read the paper this morning?’

‘No, I was busy watching a television programme called Horace Whalley Goes to the Office.’

Fifeshire grinned for a brief moment. ‘Look at the front page.’

The headline read: Prince and Princess of Wales start Belfast Tour.

‘Did you know they were going on a Belfast tour?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Well, nor did I. Forty million pounds is the budget I have this year to spend on spying on Northern Ireland terrorism, and there isn’t anyone that knows more about the subject than I do, yet they go and send the Prince and Princess over there without even asking our opinion. Anyhow,’ he said, abruptly changing the subject, ‘that’s not your problem. Let’s hear what you have to say.’