‘I was there briefly as a young man, sir.’

‘I hardly know it. I’ve only ever passed through when changing planes. So how would they know about our so-called links?’

‘Maybe someone there has read your books? You always print an acknowledgement. Anyway, I still have contacts. As you know.’

As I knew, perhaps, but not fully. Spoder covered his remaining lines of contact to the serving police with lack of detail. I assumed it was deliberate. I had worked with him on and off for several years and still felt I hardly knew him. I wasn’t even sure where he lived, although he had once said it was in an apartment in an unfashionable part of Raba City.

He seemed able to access files and other intelligence remarkably quickly, almost as if he was there in the office and could download them, or walk across to a filing cabinet and pull out old papers. It made me wonder, often, how fully retired he really was. It was a reminder of Frejah Harsent’s ambiguous working relationship with her force. Did all cops semi-retire?

As for Spoder, surely the police would have internal procedures to guard against the kind of enquiries that from time to time interested me? Because Spoder usually came up with the material I wanted I took advantage, and never asked questions. He was useful to me.

Writers lead quiet, unobjectionable lives, but on some subjects we are ruthless.

Spoder did not seem to behave like a cop – but then, how did cops normally behave? I had never been in the police, nor ever had any job like it. Being a police officer is just a job, but what does an ordinary copper think or believe when not at work? My guess is as good as anyone’s. Writers make things up, we are professional deceivers. What we do not know, or can plausibly invent, we try to find out. Mostly we look in other books, we go to libraries, we browse the internet, and when we still can’t find what we are looking for we ask someone like Spoder. We guess at the rest.

Anyway, novels are a form of entertainment. They are not documentaries.

‘So this Jeksid,’ I said. ‘How was it left? Did he give you a contact number, or an address? Is he going to try again?’

‘I could offer to meet him myself. He suggested that.’

‘No – don’t do that!’ I said at once. The thought of Spoder acting as some kind of spokesman for me was alarming. Who knows what he might say, or inadvertently reveal?

‘Then, if you did agree to meet him I could arrange to be there at the same time. Keep an eye on him, if you like. I thought he sounded a bit menacing.’

‘You didn’t tell me that before.’