‘You’re saying the disk wasn’t wiped accidentally?’

‘I’m not sure, but I never was a great believer in coincidence.’

‘No, me neither. But then someone in the control room must have wiped it.’

‘I suppose so, yes. I got the impression Villiers wanted everything kept as quiet as possible.’

Which, Hepton thought, seems to mean keeping you out of the way.

‘Thanks, Paul,’ he said.

‘Remember what I said about taking a holiday.’

‘Goodbye, Paul. Look after yourself.’

‘You too, Martin. And I mean that. You too.’

Driving off, Hepton checked in his rear-view mirror and saw the two orderlies approach Vincent. Vincent had the look of a lonely man, of a man unfairly imprisoned. Hepton felt his hands harden around the steering wheel. He pressed down a little on the accelerator and enjoyed the momentary feeling of complete control.

8

The Palladio Bookshop was sited not far from Holborn Underground station, and every weekday morning the shop’s proprietor, Mr Vitalis, would take the Piccadilly Line Tube from his home in Arnos Grove. He always walked up the escalators rather than standing, but this was due not so much to impatience or any need to be getting on as it was a keen desire to keep himself fit. After all, Mr Vitalis was nearing fifty, though he looked older. Some said his background, to judge from his voice, was east European, and that he had come to England at the outbreak of World War Two. Others, examining his olive skin, proclaimed him Greek, while a few guessed at Italian and fewer still north African. In a sense, they were all correct, since Mr Vitalis liked to think of himself, in the truest sense of the phrase, as a man of the world.

The Palladio was fairly quiet in the mornings, busying at lunchtime with customers from the offices and shops, browsing as they munched on a sandwich or sipped from a carton or can. In the afternoon, a few of the regulars usually dropped in either to buy or to sell. Mr Vitalis had a good reputation with the city’s book reviewers, who would offer him the latest titles, once they had been finished with, for one third of the cover price. These books Mr Vitalis sold on to libraries and, it must be said, other bookshops. And in this way he made his money.

He kept few friends, but those he did keep, when entertained for the first time at his home, could not help but comment on its size, and on the superb works of art he had collected over the years. He would smile, and then move the conversation along to literary gossip or some commentary on current affairs. For Mr Vitalis loved conversation.