I headed back to the party to find that the noise level had reached the optimum decibel rating, marginally less than that of Concorde taking off. Negrini was near the door. He took one look at my face and said, ‘You look as though you’ve just swallowed a lemon. Cheer up and have a drink.’

‘Not now.’ I looked about the room. ‘Seen Hanna?’

Negrini grinned. ‘I saw him talking to Barstow a few minutes ago. It looked like the opening shots in a civil war. I’d say there’s a schism developing in the police force.’

I said, ‘How safe is Hanna if it comes to a power struggle with Barstow?’

‘I wouldn’t know. He’s a clever guy, and don’t you be deceived by that sleepy look of his.’ He shook his head. ‘But Barstow has Conyers behind him.’

I saw Hanna on the other side of the room, standing with his head cocked on one side as if listening to something. I said, ‘I think we’re about to find out how safe he is. The earthquake is coming, Gerry.’

I went across to Hanna and said, ‘They’re trying to blackmail her. Me too.’

He blinked at me. ‘Who and who?’

‘Conyers, Hosmer and Roker want me absent. They threatened to blow the story of Salton and Leotta Tomsson if I don’t leave. I think I spiked it – for now.’

‘As I said before, things happen when you’re around. There’s a word for it. You’re a catalyst.’ He frowned and cocked his head on one side again. ‘Something’s going on.’

‘What?’

‘Listen.’

A woman near me was yelling at her escort in a high-pitched soprano. ‘For God’s sake!’ I said. ‘What am I supposed to hear in the middle of this?’ But obediently I listened and found that there was a different quality to the noise, an underlying rhythm of varying intensity, which seemed to beat in waves.

Hanna jerked his head at me and I followed him to the window. He pulled aside the curtain and we looked out over Fleming Square. Dusk was falling and it was packed with people, a shimmering mosaic of shouting heads and waving arms in the fading light. There must have been a couple of thousand out there and they were all shouting the same thing.

Sal-ton. Sal-ton. SAL-TON. SAL-TON.

As Hanna dropped the curtain I saw the first of the riot squads arrive on the other side of the square. He said, ‘That’s no rentacrowd – that’s the real thing. They mean business.’ He looked around and beckoned to Barstow.

I parted the curtain again and looked out over the square. The contrast between the colonial rococo inside and the raw street outside, between the urbane civilities of the cocktail hour and those clenched fists, made me realise what the Czar and his family must have felt just before the mob stormed the Winter Palace.