We carried on doing this for a few minutes, not saying anything. I think Sasha was afraid to - in silence, it was easier to pretend we were doing something else, so he busied himself with selecting the best stones for the job, delegating their placement to me. It was as though he were a child building a sand-castle, searching for decoration for one of the turrets.

When Chief was pretty much laden, I took his house-keys from my coat and placed them in his top pocket. No harm in being tidy. I signalled to Sasha. Chief’s face and hands already looked grey in the yard’s sulphurous light. Had I not pulled the trigger, he’d have been stirring his cup of cocoa and shuffling into bed about now - having just heard all about my involvement in Father’s mission from Pritchard, and had me arrested for treason as a result.

I stopped looking at him and told Sasha to do the same; it wasn’t making things easier. We lifted him again, shimmied to the edge and started swinging him until we had a reasonable rhythm and some height. Then I counted to three, and we heaved forward and let him go.

I was enveloped in a fog of cigarette smoke as I walked into Ronnie Scott’s. Once I’d made my way through it, I saw that the support band was still on - three earnest young men sweating for their art in matching orange brocade suits - and the place was packed.

I usually savoured the atmosphere, but tonight I had to find Vanessa, and fast. I was close to half an hour late and I wasn’t sure what kind of mood she would be in - our afternoon of lovemaking might have left her feeling the snub even more.

We hadn’t visited the club since the previous summer, and it had expanded in the meantime, but I remembered that she liked to sit as close to the stage as possible, so I bypassed the bar and made for the candlelit tables up front. There was no sign of her. I scanned the crowd desperately: a handsome Indian gent in a pinstripe suit and white turban; a party of young women, all sporting the same outlandish hairdo; an elderly man enraptured by the band, playing along on an imaginary piano - every face in London, it seemed, but one. Perhaps she was in the lavatory, or had left a message with one of the waitresses. I was walking towards the bar, when I felt a tug at my sleeve.

‘So there you are,’ she whispered in my ear. ‘I was about to give up hope!’