"He's here," Ash said, coming back with the drinks. She sat down.

I looked around. I saw him after a while. A little shorter and a little younger-looking than I'd expected, from the tape I'd seen. He was talking to a couple of other guys; they were all dressed in grey trench coats, and one had put a hat down on the bar that at least looked like it ought to be called a fedora. I wondered if the other two were also journalists.

Rupert Paxton-Marr; a foreign correspondent, his meticulously-trained, razor-sharp mind ready in an instant to describe a place as «war-torn» and bring home to us all events and disasters in far away places, to talk of people tearing at the rubble with their bare hands, to reveal that only with dawn did the full extent of the devastation become apparent, and even — in the very best traditions of British popular journalism — to ask people who'd just seen their entire family duly butchered, burned, crushed or drowned, How do you feel?

Ash seemed contemplative, eyeing me with a steady gaze. «Well…» I said, feeling my heart beat faster and my palms start to sweat. I took the two torn match-book covers out of my pocket. "Think I'll go see what he has to say for himself."

"Want me to come?" Ash started to move in her seat.

I shook my head. Then bit my lip. "Shit, I don't know. All the way down here, I was just going to go up to him and say, 'You send these to my dad? but now I don't know. It feels a bit weird." I looked over at the three men. "I mean," I laughed. "They're even wearing trench-coats!"

Ash looked briefly over too. "Hey," she said, smiling. "They're on wine; they're not just knocking back whiskies and heading off. They'll be here a while yet. Sit and think for a moment."

I nodded, took a deep breath and drank some whisky.

I thought about it some more. Then I said, "Okay. Maybe we should go together. You could sort of introduce… I could go out and pretend to just come in… Hell; I could just tell him the truth… I don't know." I closed my eyes, appalled at my own lack of gumption.

Ash got up, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Sit here. I'll tell him I've just recognised him. You come over later; just mention the match-books. Don't show them, not at first. How does that sound?"

I opened my eyes. I shook my head and said, "Oh, I don't know, good as anything."

"Right." Ash went over to the men. She pulled something from the back of her head as she went, and shook her long fawn hair down. It was the length of the jacket. I smiled to myself. That's my girl, I thought.

I saw them look her up and down. Rupert smiled, then looked mystified as she talked, animated, hands waving. Then he laughed, his tanned, handsome face smiled and he looked her up and down again. The expression changed just a little, though, after that, as though something else had occurred to him. He looked a little more wary. So it appeared to me, anyway. He held out one hand, seeming to make introductions. Ash nodded. He pointed to the bar; she shook her head, then nodded back at me.

Rupert Paxton-Marr gazed above me, then dropped his gaze. He looked at me then back at Ashley. She was talking to him. His expression went through puzzlement, maybe concern, then went wary again, finally cold, studiously expressionless. He nodded, leaning back against a post supporting the front of the bar. Ash glanced back at me, her eyes opening wide for an instant, then she turned back to the men.

I started to get to my feet.

Rupert's expression didn't change as I walked over. Two couples passed in front of me, weaving their way between the tables. When they'd passed, Rupert was already on his way to the door, mouth smiling broadly, one hand alternately waving and pointing at his watch as he backed off. By the time I got to where Ash and the two guys in the trench coats were standing, he'd made it out to the street.

I stood there, frowning at the door Rupert Paxton-Marr had exited through. Something about the way he'd moved as he'd backed off had left me with an uncanny feeling of déjà vu.

Ash looked surprised. So did the two guys. One of them looked me up and down. "Jesus Christ," he said. "How'd you do that? Usually only women with toddlers screaming 'Daddy! in tow have that sort of effect on Rupe."

Remember, remember, I thought to myself, and smiled. I turned to the man and shrugged. "It's a gift," I told him.

"He owe you money or somefink?" the second man said. They were both about thirty, lean and clean-cut. Both were smoking.

I shook my head.

Ash laughed loudly. "No," she said, holding her hands out to the two men. "It's just that the last time we all met up, we all got filthy drunk — didn't we, Presley? — and Rupert thinks Presley here —»

Presley? Ash was indicating me when she said the name. Presley? I thought.

"… thinks that Rupert tried to proposition him. Which he didn't, of course, but it was all a little embarrassing, wasn't it, dear?" Her happy, smiling face looked demandingly at me.

I nodded dumbly as the two men looked at me as well.

"Embarrassing," I confirmed.

Ash was beaming smiles all over the place like a laser gone berserk. "I mean," she said, tossing her hair. "Rupert isn't gay, is he? And Presley… " She looked suddenly sultry, voice slowing, going a little deeper. «Here…» She took an extra breath, her gaze flickering down from my face to my crotch and back,"… certainly isn't."

Then she seemed to collect herself and directed a broad smile to the two men. They looked suitably confused.

"Presley? PRESLEy?" I yelled as we walked rapidly along Thomas More Street. "How could you?" I waved my hands about. A light drizzle was falling out of the orange-black sky.

Ashley strode on, grinning. She held a small umbrella; her heels clicked. "Sorry, Prentice; it was just the first thing I thought of."

"But it isn't even very different from Prentice!" I shouted.

She shrugged. "Well then, that's probably why it was the first thing I thought of." Ash laughed.

"It's not funny," I told her, sticking my hands into my pockets, stepping over some empty pizza containers.

"It wasn't funny," Ash agreed, almost prim. "It's your reaction that is." She nodded.

Great," I said. "There are two guys going around now who think my name is Presley, but to you it's just a hoot." I stepped on a wobbly paving stone and jetted dirty water up my chinos. "Jeez," I muttered.

Look," said Ash, sounding serious at last. "More to the point, I'm sorry I fucked that up. I don't know why he dashed off like that. All I said was I'd a friend with me. I didn't even say you wanted to meet him or anything. It was weird." She shook her head. "Weird."

We had escaped from the pub after finishing our drinks and chatting — awkwardly on my part, easily on Ashley's — with Rupert's two friends (Howard and Jules); a stilted conversation whose most useful result seemed to have been a general agreement that old Rupe was a lad, eh?

"Doesn't matter," I told her. I saw a taxi coming with its light on and suddenly remembered I was rich. "I know where I saw him, now."

I stepped into the road and waved.

"You do?" Ash said from the kerb.

"Yep." The cab pulled in. Things were looking up; my usual Klingon Cloaking Device — which has tended to engage automatically on the rare occasions I have felt rich enough in the past to afford a taxi — seemed to have been de-activated. I held the door open for Ashley.

"So; you going to tell me, or be all mysterious?" she said as she got in.

"I'll tell you over dinner." I sat beside her and closed the door. "Dean Street, Soho, please," I told the driver. I smiled at Ashley.

"Dean Street?" she said, eyebrow arching.

"Amongst many other things, I owe you a curry."