He turned back to Albert. ‘Ollie,’ he said, proffering a large hand that almost completely engulfed Albert’s. His grip was firm, the palm surprisingly hard for a man as corpulent.

‘Albert.’

‘So, Albert. Would you say you’re an interesting chap?’

‘Well …’

‘Oh, I think you are! You see, sharp people, they’re always interesting to me and you’re sharp all right! Sharp enough to know when to keep your mouth shut and let the other fellow keep going. Sharp enough to find the girl and, what’s more, get past them with her too! And sharp enough to make them send out alerts about you—you, not her, not the two of you, but just you—as if you were the last lollipop on earth, make them desperate enough to advertize their own failure, not that they fail very often now, do they?’ He shook his head emphatically. ‘No, sirree, they don’t! Because, the thing is, they don’t really tell you when they’re coming. The only ones who get away are the ones who run away before, long before they have to. Which usually means I told them to.’

He grinned. ‘But not you, my friend. No, not only did I not tell you anything, you waited till they came before you made a dash for it, and you made it too, at least till here. And so we have you, right in our midst. Yet I’ve never heard of you.’ His smile broadened, if that was possible. ‘Now, wouldn’t you say that makes you interesting?’

And then, abruptly, the smile vanished. The change was unnerving. His countenance was so still and expressionless it seemed to have been cast from stone. The man’s entire aspect had transformed. The jolly raconteur had disappeared, and in his place stood someone else, someone far more dangerous, even frightening. But the most remarkable feature about the man, what really froze Albert, was his eyes—those inscrutable, unblinking eyes. Cool, grey, intelligent and almost perfectly round, they seemed to bore like gimlets through whatever they rested on. At the moment they rested on Albert.

Then the big man pulled up a chair and, easing his bulk into it, indicated the one in front of him, ‘Sit.’

The voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the authority it carried. Albert obeyed. Ollie leaned back, saying nothing, his expression unchanged. Seated there, with only a table separating them, Albert was struck by how big he actually was, his head at least half a foot above Albert’s, even though they were both sitting down.

‘Why are you here?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘I—I—I didn’t really have anywhere else to go,’ he stammered.

The gimlet eyes bored deeper. ‘Why are you so nervous?’

‘You’re making me nervous.’

The man nodded matter-of-factly, as if he’d stated the obvious. ‘Tell me your story.’

‘I thought you heard it already.’

‘Tell me again.’