Platt glared after him angrily. Cocky bastard, he thought. He’ll come to me yet. He wondered again why Bannerman had come to Brussels in the first place. Surely he couldn’t possibly have known . . . And yet, hadn’t he seen Bannerman with Slater and Gryffe just last night? He must know something. It would pay to keep an eye on him.

*

Outside, the temperature was still falling. The wind blew sleet up the Rue des Quatre Bras into the darkness of the Place Poelaert, to swirl around the foot of a tall black monument. Bannerman stepped out across the cobbles, pulling up his collar, and headed down towards the lights of the Boulevard de Waterloo, crossing the tramlines, past a group of people huddled below a shelter at the tram stop. The cold reached him even through the thickness of his coat. He thought about Tania and felt deeply depressed. He remembered the moment, just two nights ago, when she had come into his room, standing there in her nightdress watching him and then leaning over to touch his face.

What horrors were locked up in that little head?

Inside a large fashionable restaurant, prosperous people were seated at tables around a huge open fire, drinking wine, laughing, untouched by it all. Bannerman looked in at them through a large picture window and saw his drawn face, white and marred by bruising, reflected in the glass. He turned away and crossed the boulevard and walked up to the Métro at the Porte de Namur. He rode the underground to Arts Loi and then changed for Schuman, where he came out under the shadow of the Berlaymont. For several minutes he stood looking up at the endless rows of darkened windows, wondering if the answers to everything that had happened today might lie behind them. Then he set out with heavy steps down the Rue de la Loi towards the Rue de Commerce.

Slater’s apartment was dark and still when he let himself in, and he almost expected to find Slater in his chair in the half-light of the living room where he had sat two nights before. That seemed a long time ago now. The living room was cold and empty. He went into Tania’s room and stood in the darkness. An old rag doll lay in the armchair by the dead fire. He bent over and picked it up to hold against his face. Life was so unfair for those who deserved so much more. He dropped the doll back on to the chair and returned to the living room. He switched on the light and lifted the phone and began dialling wearily. The number rang three times.

‘Edinburgh Post.’ The voice was polished thin by all the miles in between.

‘Neil Bannerman. Give me the editor.’

‘One moment, Mr Bannerman.’ A phone lifted a few seconds later.

‘Tait.’

‘Neil Bannerman.’

‘Jesus Christ, Bannerman! Why the hell have I not heard from you before now?’