I memorized the exact positions of the briefcases, so that I could tell if any had been moved, and limped awkwardly down the aisle and through into the next carriage, a first-class sleeper. And then I saw her. She was in a compartment on her own, and she looked up for a brief moment as I passed. I caught her eye. She must have caught mine too, but she didn’t show anything on her face. She had red hair and glasses. Last time she had blonde hair and no glasses, and she wore different make-up. It was a shade over two years. Long enough for someone to change, but not long enough to forget. Had she forgotten, or was I just making a mistake? The man who had trodden on my foot was walking back down the corridor. Now was not the time to find out.

Chapter 2

2

It had all begun for me with a telephone call on a wet September morning, less than four months before. The man had used the code of one of our operatives in Libya to get through to me, and he had sounded very frightened.

When the switchboard had first put him through he came across in an extremely irritating way, as people who can’t speak one’s language often do. At first, I thought it was just nervousness at speaking to a stranger in a strange language.

‘Hello Mr Flynn, I am Ahmed.’

‘Yes?’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine thanks, what do you want?’

‘Pardon?’

‘What do you want? What–can–I–do–for–you?’

‘No – it is me. I am Ahmed.’

I decided that I was on the receiving end of a sales pitch from a Middle-Eastern life-assurance salesman on his first venture into England, and nearly hung up on him. It might have been a good thing for both our futures if I had, but I was obliged to listen, and so I did.

‘I am call for Donald Frome. In bad trouble. Please you must come.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Pardon?’

‘What sort of trouble is Donald Frome in?’

‘I cannot talk more, here, please. You come right away, please. Men’s wash place, Royal Lancaster Hotel, twelve o’clock. You must, please.’ He hung up.

I looked at my watch: it was almost eleven thirty. I wondered whether it was a set-up, and decided it wasn’t. The man had sounded genuine. One can fake a lot of emotions, but fear is probably the hardest, and my skull was still ringing with the fear in his voice.

I had the cab drop me off a couple of hundred yards up the Bayswater Road; the traffic was light and we were there a few minutes earlier than I had expected, and I didn’t want to have to hang around either the hotel lobby or the lavatory.