The first time there, James was merely a privileged spectator at the express invitation of Brent Millar, who was dressed, apparently ready to take a hand in the proceedings, thus:

Booted, breeches of impeccable and close cut, white silk shirt, a little whip with a swan-head handle.

The heart sinks. One ploughs on. Everyone present is suitably attired, some as Nazis, some as motorcycle police, or soldiers in the cavalry. The others, and there have to be others, are sailors, boy scouts or just wear riding-boots and a cache-sex. There is smoke, there is very soft blues music, and the sound of Solly (Aronovich) reading poetry.

He announced the performance we shall presently see. My heart thuds. Brent had his hand on my thigh and stroked me urgently. His eyes burned into me with the force of an electric drill.

Well, you may imagine with all that drilling it was not very long before young James had been hypnotized. Stoat and rabbit stuff. Gently, with a good deal of flattery and cajoling, one must suppose, James was persuaded to partake of the rituals one evening. To take part in one of the exclusive tableaux himself. As a victim, naturally. And therefore very soon after this initiation, James, naked as the day he was born, shaved, oiled, as smooth and suggestive as a Canova marble, was carried, chained and securely bound, over the shoulders of his Master, one Jojo. The tableau was called, as you might guess, ‘Le Blanc et le Noir’. James, high on coke, limp and submitting. Jojo gleaming, armed with a whip, began the dance of humiliation and bondage. James’s fate (as well as his lips – he was gagged with a belt) was finally sealed.

I reckoned, about this time, that enough was quite enough. The books, or Agendas, lay before me, the box-file remained untouched. I didn’t even drink the water. But I had made use of the pens and paper.

I walked out of the little study. Jojo was lying on a sofa in the white and yellow room reading a magazine. He sprang up when he saw me.

‘You through?’

‘Through. Is Mr Millar awake anywhere? I mean, before I leave.’

Brent Millar was wheeled towards me, head to one side, the eyes, the incandescent blue eyes, half lowered. Questioning.

‘You finished? It was quickly done.’

‘I have seen enough. Thanks.’

‘Don’t hit me, I’m a cripple.’ An uneasy smile.

‘I wasn’t about to hit you. I’m grateful to you for letting me see what I have seen. But it’s all I want. I don’t want to know who James Caldicott was. I want to know where he is presently.’

Millar raised his arms, spread the elegant fingers, smiled with a degree of weariness.

‘There I cannot help you. None of us can, I think … Where in the movie, so to speak, did you come in?’

‘I came in at the old-school story. Left on your arrival.’