‘The practical side’s easy. I’ve got four days to go at this. I know the address for the cash pick-up and I know the general area where I’m going to be doing the handover. So I’m going to check out the house where I’ve got to go for the money. Then I’m going to get to know the various routes from A to B like the back of my hand. I need to be able to adjust to any contingencies that crop up, and that means knowing the terrain well enough to change my plans without having to think twice. I need to think about what I’m going to wear and how easily I can adapt my appearance to confuse anyone who’s watching me.’

He nodded, agreeing. ‘But of course, some of the practicalities are conditional on the psychological aspects.’

‘And that’s the bit I don’t have a handle on. Which is why I’m here. Consulting the oracle.’ Carol gave a mock salute.

His smile was self-mocking. ‘I wish my students had the same respect for my abilities.’

‘They’ve not seen you in action. They’d change their tune then.’

His mouth narrowed in a grim line and she saw a shadow in his eyes that had been missing before. ‘Yeah, right,’ he said after a short pause. ‘Sign up with me and see circles of hell that Dante could never have imagined.’

‘It goes with the territory,’ Carol said.

‘Which is why I don’t live there any more.’ He looked away, his eyes focused on the street beyond the window. He took a deep breath. ‘So. You need to know how to walk in someone else’s shoes, right?’ He turned back to face her, a forced expression of geniality on his face.

‘And under their skin.’

‘OK. Here’s where we start from. We measure people by how they look, what they do and what they say. All our assessments are based on those things. Body language, clothes, actions and reactions. Speech and silence. When we encounter someone, our brain enters into a negotiation between what it’s registering and what it has stored in its memory banks. Mostly, we only use what we’ve got locked up there as a control to judge new encounters. But we can also use it as a sampler on which to base new ways of acting.’

‘You’re saying I already know what I need to know?’ Carol looked dubious.

‘If you don’t, even someone as smart as you isn’t going to learn it between now and next week. The first thing I want you to do is to think about someone you’ve encountered who would be relatively comfortable in this scenario.’ He tapped the papers with his pen. ‘Not over-confident, just reasonably at home with it.’