Their conversation was desultory, a little awkward at first, each inhibited by the other’s strangeness and the memory of the scene at Slater’s apartment. But Bannerman liked the smell of wine on her breath and the way she wore no make-up except on her fine lips. He found it easier to look at her than to talk. He saw now that she was older than he had first thought. Her thick, short hair was a rich auburn flecked with the first signs of a premature grey. Her eyes, below finely stretched lids, were a deep, solemn green speckled with brown. Only the finest of lines etched out from their corners betrayed her youthful appearance. Her nose was short and a little pinched around the nostrils. It was a delicately structured face without being beautiful, and you thought you could tell from her smile and her eyes that she knew how to look after herself. She had a bright laugh, and always when she laughed she flicked back her head in a small, careless way. And Bannerman guessed she must recently have worn her hair long. She would be about thirty, he thought.

They left the steak house a little warmer and a little closer, and walked further down the boulevard towards the Place Rogier, where the towering Manhattan Centre of concrete and glass rose powerfully into the night sky. ‘You’re a strange, quiet sort of man,’ Sally said without looking at him, her eyes fixed high up on the Manhattan building on a large Martini neon.

‘Only when I’m strange and quiet.’

She smiled. ‘You still want to get drunk?’

‘Not drunk. Gently . . . tipsy.’

‘We can go in here.’

The Manhattan was a small, upmarket café near the end of the Boulevard Adolphe Max, emulating the American bars of Thirties movies. A row of tall stools stood along a bar of polished mahogany, below a wooden canopy hung with beaten copper light shades. Small round tables and chairs stood in clusters in little alcoves. The walls were panelled in the same polished mahogany, and behind the bar stickers advertised Scotch, American beer and Stella Artois. It was almost deserted, and they filled two empty stools along the row. A bored waiter in black waistcoat over a white shirt and bow tie had been leaning against the end of the bar smoking a cigarette when they came in. Now he snapped to attention and approached to take their order. They asked for whiskies, which he brought in short glasses to be placed on mats on the counter in front of them. Bannerman raised his glass. ‘Slainthe.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s Scots for good health. Gaelic.’

She smiled. ‘Slainthe then.’

They took their first sips in silence before Bannerman said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’

‘There’s nothing much to tell.’

‘Now why do people always say that?’

‘Maybe because it’s true.’