After ten minutes, he heard a lock being turned. He glanced from behind the alcove wall. The stalker was coming out of number forty-four. Cavalier remained out of sight until he heard the elevator reaching the ground floor. He moved to number forty-four. It had an electronic lock. Cavalier slipped on the gloves sent by Anthony Jones and used the key card. It didn’t work. Cavalier tried several times. The lock flashed green. He was in.

He became aware of the offensive aftershave that he had noticed on Gerard Dubois on the Mekong. Could his nose be playing tricks on him? He wondered if he could be wishing it were Dubois. Cavalier switched on the light and began checking the stalker’s luggage. He found two handguns, which he emptied of bullets and stuffed under the double-bed mattress. There was also a map of the area around the Roosevelt Hotel. There were several photographs of Haut. On one, a pencil mark encircled his hair and noted: ‘dyed black’.

There was a manila envelope inside a suitcase. Cavalier opened it. Enclosed was a passport in the name ‘Juan Lopez’ and print-out pages of bank account details. A savings account with Bank of America in the Lopez name had a balance of $1,500,580 dollars, with the latest entry being for $1.5 million from a bank in the Bahamas.

Cavalier scrutinised the passport photo. Could it really be Gerard Dubois? The hair had been thick and long. Now it was sheared off. The eyebrows that once almost joined had been cut back. The eyes were blue in the photo. Dubois’ had been brown. The nose had been gnarled with a knob in the middle. Now it was trim and smaller. Had he had cosmetic surgery? Cavalier stared at the eyes. It was the hollow dead look that was familiar. He thought, and hoped, it was Dubois.

Cavalier noted the time as 8.23 p.m. and calculated that if the stalker had booked a seat at the cafe, he would be back at around 9.15 p.m. He recalled Dubois gobbling down more food than anyone on the Mekong tour and anticipated his wait being another fifty minutes.

Cavalier cleared a leather chair beside the door, removed his gun and rested it on his lap. He was comforted by the probability that the stalker did not have a weapon on him. He had lost a gun to the security guards at the Flatiron. Cavalier had hidden two more. He had learnt never to assume anything, but even if the stalker had more concealed weapons, Cavalier expected to have the upper hand.

At 9.27 p.m. he heard the elevator whirr to the fourth floor. Seconds later, the electronic lock sounded. The stalker entered the room. He switched on the light.