‘Now, now, Toby,’ replied Django calmly. ‘I have told you before that you really should not make such a noise.’ He bent down to pick up a cloth from the floor and, as he did so, Toby Salt glanced upwards and our eyes met. I put a finger to my lips in warning.

In my anxiety to hear the conversation, I’d advanced further into the workshop than I had intended; I was now standing only a couple of metres behind Django. But, as he set about re-tying his prisoner’s gag, he must have noticed some subtle change in Toby Salt’s demeanour that caused him to whirl around suddenly. We found ourselves face to face.

‘What!’ he snarled nasally. ‘Who are you?’

He picked up a printer’s block and began to advance on me menacingly.

‘Please put that down. It’s all over now, Django,’ I said, backing away nervously.

‘It is for you!’ he cried as he raised the printer’s block into the air, poised to bring it down on my head. In desperation, I blindly grabbed an object from the table next to me and slammed it into his face. If that didn’t unblock his nasal passages, nothing would. Django reeled backwards from the blow, lost his footing and crashed down, cracking his head on the edge of an impressively solid-looking piece of Victorian machinery.

There were shouts behind me as DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck burst into the workshop. They surveyed the scene in front of them. Sergeant Tuck went over to inspect Django’s crumpled figure.

‘He’s out cold but he’ll be OK,’ he said.

I looked down at my hands to see what I’d struck him with: it was a copy of the commemorative linocut edition of This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave.

‘Who would have thought Toby Salt’s poetry could be so hard-hitting,’ I joked. Disappointingly, nobody laughed. Darren would have enjoyed that line.

‘Can somebody PLEASE unchain me from this damn machine?’ came a voice from across the workshop.

I went over to Toby Salt.

‘Is this what you meant by being at the bleeding interface of literature and technology?’ I asked him, in an attempt to cheer him up.

It was at that point DI Lansbury reminded me that kidnapping was a rather serious matter, that Toby Salt would have endured a very traumatic and gruelling experience and that perhaps it would be the best for everyone if I went home and left them to it.

Friday December 7th

I opened the door to the spectacle of DI Lansbury’s triumphant beard, and behind him, the doughty Sergeant Tuck, bearing news.

‘Django has confessed all,’ declared DI Lansbury. ‘It was the final act of desperation from a publisher on the verge of bankruptcy.’

‘I had no idea,’ I said. ‘I’d always imagined they were doing well. That’s the impression that Toby Salt gave.’