Fifteen minutes later I stuff my shirts, pants and toothbrush into my holdall, smile at the lady on reception, and walk out to my battered Peugeot in the car park. There is an election on. And there is a debt to be repaid. To Clare.

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

‘YOU’RE EMBARRASSING YOURSELF,’ I TELL Cat. ‘Do you think if Clint Eastwood had been on his own for three days, he’d make himself ridiculous by lying on his back and begging to have his tummy rubbed?’

First Dad, and now Cat. It’s funny how those who for years prided themselves on being able to take me or leave me suggest they would actually care if I disappeared. Despite myself, I am pleased. The purity of a no-strings existence can be wearing. Cat rubs himself against my leg and runs ahead of me, directing me to the emptiness of his bowl. ‘Don’t kid a kidder, Cat. I paid Tracey to feed you.’ Tracey is the sixteen-year-old daughter of my upstairs neighbour. ‘OK, OK. As a treat you can eat again.’

The cleaner has been today and the flat has that welcome-home smell of Flash, bleach and newly vacuumed carpets. ‘Did you make any progress on the case while I was away?’ I ask Cat. ‘Any breakthroughs I need to know about?’ Cat is concentrating too hard on his second supper to pay me much attention. ‘No? OK, well I need to crack on, before my bosses notice I’ve busted out.’

The FC made me hand over my work phone and pager before heading to the Minster. ‘We’ll just look after them for a bit, so that you get a proper rest,’ said the disingenuously solicitous bloke in Personnel, who didn’t seem to know that the FC pays for a second phone. I go over to the mahogany chest of drawers in the bedroom. Top drawer: pants and socks, as per the law. Under the socks – phew – silver Nokia, the Bat Phone.

I dial 121. ‘You have sixty-one messages.’

Oh shit. I can’t be arsed to listen to them. And there are another twenty-three recorded on my landline’s Ansafone, as many as it could hold before the tape ran out. They’ll be my bedtime lullaby later. Right now, I need to make a call.

‘Her Majesty’s Treasury,’ says a cheery operator in a sing-song voice.

‘Jeremy MacDonald, please.’

Tuesday, 22 April – 9 days until Election Day