Hanna sipped from his glass. ‘Good whisky,’ he said approvingly. ‘You’ve left someone out, Mr Kemp. Leotta Tomsson, 432 Gregory Plaza, Marshalltown.’

Hanna was a crafty devil and not nearly as sleepy as he looked. ‘You know about her?’

‘I work on the political detail, Mr Kemp – seeing that visiting dignitaries don’t get shot full of too many holes, that sort of thing. To do that, I have to know who is likely to do the shooting. So we keep an eye on everybody. We ran security checks on Salton as a matter of routine after he came back to Campanilla. We came across Leotta Tomsson eighteen months ago.’

I could see David Salton’s secret leaking out even as we talked. ‘I bet Prime Minister Conyers finds your files fascinating,’ I said.

Hanna looked hurt. ‘Conyers doesn’t know. This is state security, not party political stuff. If anyone wants to see the files he has to get past me.’

I regarded him thoughtfully. This was the age-old problem with police work, when loyalties become divided, motives strained and the best of good intentions lead directly to hell. Still, if you had to have a watchdog, Hanna might be a good one and relatively incorruptible.

‘So what about Leotta Tomsson?’ I said.

‘Nothing much – nothing political, anyway. Why did you see her?’

‘Joe Hawke seemed to think it was a good idea.’

‘Did he indeed? And what happened?’

‘Nothing,’ I said blankly. ‘I just confirmed her relationship with Salton, that’s all.’

‘The eternal triangle,’ mused Hanna, looking down into his glass. ‘Salton, Mrs Salton and Leotta Tomsson.’

‘I asked Miss Tomsson if Jill Salton knew about her. She said she didn’t think so.’

‘And yet there was a quarrel between Salton and his wife. Interesting.’

‘Not that interesting, otherwise you’d have followed it up before now.’

He drained his glass and set it down. ‘I can’t sit around drinking with you all hours of the day, Mr Kemp. I have work to do.’

‘I’ll try not to drag you away from it again.’ The telephone rang. ‘Stick around for a minute: I put in a call to London and this may be it. The boss might want to talk to the authorities. I suppose you qualify?’

Hanna closed his eyes tiredly as I picked up the telephone. ‘I suppose I do,’ he said despondently.

After a lot of snapping, crackling and popping, Costello came on the line. He sounded irritable because I’d called his home. Because of the time differential, the London office was closed and I’d called him direct. ‘For God’s sake!’ he said. ‘I’m in the middle of a dinner party. I have a house full of people here.’

‘Pity you couldn’t have invited Ogilvie,’ I said.