An old man sat in the corner making his coffee last so he could remain in the warmth, and a hard-faced woman behind the counter sat smoking a cigarette and watching Kale. She had seen the likes of him before. A place like this was a constant stream of men and women who had seen better days. There was the familiar suit, perhaps expensive once, but now fraying at the cuffs, crumpled, baggy, shiny at the elbows and the seat of the pants. The old blue overcoat, rubbed and coffee-stained down the front, dandruff on the collar. The clothes hung loosely on his lean frame. She had seen worse, but maybe this one was just starting out.

He would be around thirty-nine or forty, hair thinning, greased back. A hollow face with high cheekbones; clear, pale, slightly yellow skin, remarkably unlined. It was his eyes that interested her, if it was possible to say that she was interested in anything. They were dark, deep-sunk eyes, set too close, and they burned with a bleak intensity that she had not seen before. There was something sullen in his face, but it was not the face of defeat as was the face of the old man in the corner – as were most of the faces that came in here to stare morosely into endless cups of coffee.

Kale caught her watching him and she looked quickly away, becoming aware for the first time that she was actually afraid of those eyes . . . almost intimidated by them. You’re letting your imagination run away with itself, Nance, she told herself without conviction.

‘Oi, you!’ she shouted with a voice as hard as her face at the old man in the corner. A Cockney voice, a long way from home. ‘You’ve ’ad yer coffee. Now clear aht!’

The old man looked up with resignation. He had learned to accept such things. You grew used to them, as you grew used to the constant gnawing pain of an ulcer. He pushed back his chair, rising slowly with what might have been an attempt at dignity, and shuffled past the counter and out into the wet. Nance had only done it to take her mind off Kale, but now she realized her folly. She had left herself alone with him. She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and lit another between thin, painted lips, crossed to the jukebox and punched two plays. The noise would make her feel more secure, and still she wished she could have called the old man back.

But she need not have worried, for Kale had barely noticed his going, and was only mildly irritated when the jukebox began belting out a scratchy hit record. And Nance was of no interest to him. He was thinking about his meeting with Swinton in a dingy London tearoom three days earlier.

Swinton was a small, fat, busy man. He had sat across a wooden table from Kale. One of those people who perspire constantly.