‘You’ve been following me,’ growled Molloy, baring his teeth.

Buttmeal gulped, finding it difficult to swallow with Molloy’s elbow pressing across his throat with the force of an iron bar. A heavy fear plopped into his guts like a big boulder as he realised that he’d seriously underestimated Molloy’s powers of observation.

A moment later, the door to the stairwell swung open and the two other men entered, flanking Molloy on either side. A brawny one with a Mediterranean complexion and a skinny pasty one wearing a large pair of wraparound sunglasses. All three of them leaned up against him in an extremely menacing fashion.

‘Er…’ stuttered Buttmeal. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Rubbish!’ rasped Molloy, pressing his elbow harder across Buttmeal’s throat.

The brawny one lifted a thick finger and prodded him hard in the side of the head.

‘Who the fuck are you working for?’ he spat aggressively.

Buttmeal’s eyes flicked around in panic as he realised that there were no CCTV cameras here in the stairwell. It then hit him with a sinking dread that this had been a set-up. They’d lured him here deliberately. The sign on the lifts was probably fake.

‘I… urgh… I’m not… urgh…’ he struggled to breathe.

‘Sorry?’ hissed the pasty one, peeling back his lips in a nasty smile to reveal a set of rotting brown teeth. ‘I didn’t quite get that.’

‘I want some answers,’ said Molloy. ‘Now.’

Buttmeal stared back fearfully into Molloy’s eyes; they brought to mind the dead black eyes of a great white shark, and under their predatory gaze Buttmeal felt like little more than a hapless minnow that had foolishly swum into its path.

Maybe he hadn’t worked as a private detective for long enough, or maybe he’d just been lucky, but Buttmeal had never found himself in this kind of situation before, and he now felt completely out of his depth. Before becoming a private detective, he’d worked in marketing where you just didn’t meet people like this, and it now occurred to him with a pang of alarm-filled regret that perhaps he should have just stayed in that profession – the only reason he’d left marketing was because he’d thought it sounded cooler to tell people he was a private detective.

The brawny one snatched his bag and began to riffle through its contents. The pasty one reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

‘I’m… urgh… I’m a private detective,’ he managed to force out.

The pasty one held up Buttmeal’s business card, of which he kept several in his wallet. Molloy turned his head to scan the card.

‘“Where there’s a Will there’s a way”.’ He looked back at Buttmeal. ‘Very catchy.’

Buttmeal smiled nervously, but Molloy didn’t smile back.

‘Who hired you?’ asked Molloy.

Buttmeal frowned. ‘In the interests of client confidentiality, I am unable to disclose—’

‘Oi,’ the brawny one suddenly cut in. He had been browsing through the contents of Buttmeal’s digital camera and was now showing Molloy the camera. ‘He’s got a load of photos of you on here.’