There were more double doors on the far side of the lounge, leading into a dining room. As Wada crossed the parqueted floor, a figure appeared in the doorway ahead of her: quite tall, though hunched slightly at the shoulders, white-haired and square-jawed with a frowning, far-seeing gaze. There wasn’t a lot of spare flesh on him. He was wearing a well-cut dark blue suit and a white open-necked shirt. He looked rather as Wada might have expected Peter Driscoll to look: like a successful if unconventional businessman whose success hadn’t given him as much satisfaction as he’d once anticipated.

‘Wada-san,’ he said. ‘Where on earth did Kodaka find you?’ His voice was husky, his accent educated English with a subdued stress of individual syllables that hinted at long exposure to Japanese pronunciation.

‘He put an advertisement for a secretary in Asahi Shimbun.’

‘But it seems he got rather more than a secretary for his money.’

‘I became his general assistant.’

‘And proved yourself invaluable in that role, I have no doubt.’

‘You are Peter Driscoll, formerly Peter Evans, formerly Peter Ellery?’

‘I’m Peter Driscoll, yes. For the rest, they’re lives I no longer lead.’

‘I must thank you for sending Espersen to Stóri-Asgarbær. He saved my life.’

‘But he didn’t save the life I sent him there to save, did he?’

‘I suppose you think that was my fault.’

‘Fault? Well, there’s a lot of that to share round.’

He invited her with a gesture of his hand to sit down on one of the low soft-leather armchairs and sat down himself on the sofa facing her. He looked at her with a frown that was part bafflement, part disappointment.

‘If Marty hadn’t contacted Mimori Takenaga …’ he began, ‘if she hadn’t hired Kodaka … if he hadn’t kept a file full of dirt on Nishizaki … if you hadn’t insisted on continuing with the case after Kodaka was killed … and if you’d stayed off the phone, as I expressly told Marty to …’ He sounded sad rather than angry as he itemized the chain of events that had led to Caldwell’s death. ‘Then, amongst other things, we wouldn’t need to be having this conversation.’

‘I am sorry Caldwell-san died.’

‘Me too. You realize, I trust, that I had nothing to do with your employer’s murder?’

‘Who killed him?’

‘It would have been set up by Ohara. Acting on Nishizaki’s orders.’

‘Do you not act also on Nishizaki’s orders?’

‘Ostensibly, yes. But I’m sure you’ve worked out that he and I aren’t … serving the same agenda, shall we say?’

‘What is your agenda?’