‘Mr Locke, it’s me again. Sir, he’s just here at reception. He says he’ll wait for you.’

When he entered the foyer he saw Andre over to his left, in the dining area. He’d moved a chair out from a table and was sitting alone in the aisle. Hands linked in his lap and a look of serene contentment on his face, like he’d found himself by accident in one of life’s perfect moments.

The girl at the desk seemed to view this as unusual behaviour for a diner. She said to Locke, ‘Sir, is everything all right?’

‘Yeah. He’ll be gone in a moment.’

He still had his badge and his gun on his belt. He took off his suit coat and folded it across his arm and headed over to where Andre was sitting. The man’s expression didn’t change. He was barefoot, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt that hung off him like a barber’s shawl. He said, ‘Am I supposed to be rattled by that? See you walk up, flaunting your authority?’

There was a duffel bag on the table beside him. The zipper was open, but the flaps had been pulled together to hide the contents. Locke pulled out a chair and set it in the aisle facing Andre, hung his coat saddle-wise on the back of it and sat down. He said, ‘What do you want?’

‘I was going to say, What do you want?’

Locke said, ‘You touch that bag, I’m going to have to shoot you. I’m serious.’

The smile grew: a couple more teeth, and some greyish gum. ‘You mean you’ll try to.’

On Locke’s right, four couples were eating at separate tables. He saw people glance over, trying to be casual about it, seeming to realise this wasn’t a normal get together.

Locke said, ‘How’d you find me?’

‘Phone and a bit of patience. What you do, you call a place up—’ he cocked a thumb and pinkie and put the hand to his ear, ‘—and you say, Is Colton there, please?’

‘That’s a good way to get yourself in trouble. Pursuing a law-enforcement officer.’

Andre shook his head. ‘I’m not pursuing you. You came looking for me. I was in Dallas in February, I heard you’d been checking up on what I was doing. And then again in Miami last month—you remember that? Telling people I’m some kind of contract murderer? That sort of talk, I should sue.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Maybe not in words. But, you know. It was …’ He looked away. ‘What’s the word? It was … implied. Wasn’t it?’

‘I didn’t tell anyone anything.’