I went to Jessica; I gathered up her bag and I pushed her into the cupboard in my bedroom. She protested silently, pushing against me with her hands, but I did it so gently and so firmly that she could not resist. The intercom sounded again. Nothing was said this time, just the sound of the microphone crackling.

I checked the room, to make sure there was no visible sign of Jessica’s presence. I pushed the foldaway bed back into place, covering the used sheets with the sofa cushions. Then I pushed the key symbol on the intercom and opened the door. The tread on the stairs was so heavy it seemed to make the glasses tinkle in the kitchen cabinets. I thought about the throwaway boast I had made moments earlier, about having met gangsters in my business. I had never in my life been in physical danger since the days of our midnight ascensions, and I was terrified at the prospect. When he reached the landing, he fulfilled the promise of his footsteps; he was perhaps six feet four, and his body rolled like a boulder across the frame of the doorway, blocking out the light from the hall. He came into the room and slowly shut the door behind him. He turned his massive back to me for several moments when he did so, and it was a show of strength. Exposing the blind length of his spine to me, knowing I would do nothing, established his dominance absolutely. He lingered over the moment when the latch caught, pushing so gently and precisely that the sound of the deadbolt falling into place was barely audible.

‘Mr Walker?’ he said, and put out his hand. I took it, not knowing what else to do. His fingers were cold from the street. He did not tell me his own name, just looked silently into my eyes as he worked my arm slowly up and down. I felt the easy strength in his grip. ‘Where’s Miss Katz?’ he asked, letting my hand fall back to my side.

‘She’s not here,’ I said, and then briskly, ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ I thought that by showing I had not lost my manners, I would regain some of my power.

He ignored the offer, and nodded heavily, as if what I had said merely confirmed his sad suspicions. His eyes scanned the room. They came to rest on the table, and he walked over to it. I could feel the reverberation of his tread through the floorboards. ‘Transvestite, are you, Mr Walker? I know you lawyers are a funny bunch.’ He dipped two fingers into the ashtray, then held one of the butts up to the light. The end was smeared with gloss lipstick. He picked up another. The coal still glowed with heat. Jessica must have been smoking immediately before I returned with breakfast.

I was amazed that, despite the cold terror in my guts, my ego still felt piqued that this brute had outsmarted me. I made no pretensions to physical superiority, and if he had beaten down the door with his fists I would have felt the pious victim. But to beat me like this, by noticing a detail I had missed in my initial shock, that was galling as well as frightening. I considered facing him down, concocting some story about a female visitor, but decided there was no point. It was important to me to maintain the illusion of cooperation. If he searched the flat and dragged Jessica into the open by force, that would become impossible. I was used to tough negotiation, but if the encounter progressed to physical violence it would pass entirely beyond my experience and control. I went into my room, opened my cupboard doors and waited for her to emerge, keeping my eyes fixed on the carpet for fear of meeting hers.