Milton walked by the three men, ignoring them, and pushed the door to the foyer and went inside. The walls were yellowed with what looked like water stains running down them, and the tiled floor was badly cracked in several areas. The air smelled unpleasant. Fetid. There was a desk on the other side of the room that looked as if it was where the concierge worked, if that was not too grand a title for anyone who worked in a building such as this. Milton saw two elevator doors behind the desk and two more young men, both in their early to mid-twenties, who watched him suspiciously.

Milton approached the desk.

“I’m here to see Takashi Nishimoto,” he said.

The man stared at him. The two heavies next to the elevator doors were watching, too. Milton recognised them: it was the pair who had followed them yesterday. They both had bruises that bore evidence of the beating he had administered.

“Do you speak English?”

“I speak it,” the man said.

“So tell Takashi that I’m here to see him. My name is John Milton. He’s expecting me.”

The man took a phone from the desk, turned away from Milton and made a call. Milton waited, using the time to recce the ground floor of the building. There were those two elevators, served by a shaft that ran up the middle of the building. There was a set of stairs opposite those and a door that looked as if it might be a communal bathroom. Three other doors, all arranged around the elevator lobby, looked to contain the first of the building’s apartments.

The man behind the desk finished his call and made his way across the lobby to where the two guards were standing. There was a short conversation, and then the man and one of the guards came back to Milton. It was the second of the two thugs from the metro station, the one Milton had told to deliver his message.

“Come,” the guard ordered, moving his shirt aside just far enough for Milton to see the knife that he wore in a sheath on his belt.

The man took him to the elevators and told him to wait. Milton looked around; he had been correct in his assumption that the door to his right was a bathroom; a third guard emerged from it, wiping wet hands against the back of his jeans. Milton turned his attention to the elevators. The one on the left looked normal, with the standard button to summon it. The one on the right had a card reader next to the button; Milton guessed that the elevator was restricted to Takashi and his guests, a private way to ascend to his floors at the top of the building.

The elevator to the right pinged, the door opened and a man stepped out. He was in his mid-fifties to early sixties, with weathered skin and jet-black hair.