The officer was already relaxing. He slid his gun back into his holster.

‘Give me the map,’ he said. Nguyen switched on the small reading light and the policeman jabbed a finger in the bottom left-hand corner. ‘See this road here, Wellington Park?’

Nguyen nodded.

‘There are a few places there, quite cheap.’ He handed the map back to Nguyen. ‘You’d best be on your way. And in future don’t hang around in front of police stations in a van. We’re a touch sensitive about that sort of thing. Understand?’

‘I am sorry,’ said Nguyen. ‘Thank you for your help.’

The policemen grouped together and watched him go, four stout figures in dark-green bullet-proof jackets.

Nguyen followed the map until he reached Wellington Park. He drove slowly down the road, looking left and right. He soon saw a guest-house but it had a sign in the window saying ‘No Vacancies’. Further down the road there was another house with a sign saying ‘Vacancies’ and Nguyen stopped the van in front of it.

It was dark now and the van appeared yellow under the streetlights. Nguyen pressed the doorbell and waited. The front door was wooden with two vertical strips of dimpled, frosted glass. Through the glass he saw a light come on and a figure ripple towards him. The door opened to reveal an overweight elderly woman with close-cropped grey hair and horn-rimmed spectacles. She was wearing a blue and white diamond-patterned dress and a plain white apron and was drying her hands on a red tea-towel.

‘Do you have a room?’ Nguyen asked her.

She looked him up and down and then scrutinised the van over his shoulder, screwing up her eyes to read the lettering.

‘How long would you be wanting it for?’ she asked.

Nguyen had difficulty understanding her accent but she spoke slowly enough for him to get the drift.

‘Two nights, that is all. A room with a bath.’

The old woman sucked her teeth and shook her head. ‘No baths in the rooms, but I do have one with a shower and a toilet. And a small wash-basin. It’s right at the top of the house, very cosy.’

Nguyen said he’d take it and the woman seemed doubtful, but then he pulled his wallet from his jacket and offered to pay her cash, in advance, and she smiled and ushered him inside. On the way up the stairs she introduced herself as Mrs McAllister as the notes disappeared behind the apron. He told her his name and she tried to repeat it, but gave up. The room was small with a single bed, an old wooden wardrobe, a dressing-table with an oval mirror, and a bedside table with a brass lamp with a pink lampshade. There was an ornate crucifix above the bed and to the left of the dressing-table was a black-framed photograph of John F. Kennedy. The ceiling sloped down to a window overlooking the street. Opposite the window was a door leading to a tiny bathroom with a tiled floor, a shower cubicle, a wash-basin with a cylindrical gas heater on the wall above it, and a low toilet with a black plastic seat. It was perfect.