‘Well that is frankly shoddy. I’m going to have to write to my MP.’

‘What?’

‘This place,’ I said, ‘was searched this morning by members of the British Security Services. Professionals, trained at the taxpayers’ expense, and they can’t even be bothered to lock the door when they’re done. What sort of service do you call that? I’ve only got Diet Coke. That okay?’

The gun was still pointing in my general direction, but it hadn’t followed me to the fridge.

‘What were they looking for?’ She was staring out of the window now. She really did look like she’d had a hell of a morning.

‘Beats me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a cheesecloth shirt in the bottom of my cupboard. Maybe that’s an offence against the realm now’

‘Did they find a gun?’ She still wasn’t looking at me. The kettle clicked and I poured some hot water into the mug. ‘Yes, they did.’

‘The gun you were going to use to kill my father.’

I didn’t turn round. Just kept on with my coffee-making. ‘There is no such gun,’ I said. ‘The gun they found was put here by someone else so it would look as if I was going to use it to kill your father.’

‘Well, it worked.’ Now she was looking straight at me. And so was the.22. But I’ve always prided myself on the froidness of my sang, so I just poured milk into the coffee and lit a cigarette. That made her angry.

‘Cocky son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?’

‘Not for me to say. My mother loves me.’

‘Yeah? Is that a reason for me not to shoot you?’

I’d hoped she wouldn’t mention guns, or shooting, as even the British Ministry of Defence could afford to bug a room properly, but since she’d raised the subject I could hardly ignore it.

‘Can I just say something before you fire that thing?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘If I meant to use a gun to kill your father, why didn’t I have it with me last night, when I came to your house?’

‘Maybe you did.’

I paused and took a sip of coffee.

‘Good answer,’ I said. ‘All right, if I had it with me last night, why didn’t I use it on Rayner when he was breaking my arm?’

‘Maybe you tried to. Maybe that’s why he was breaking your arm.’

For heaven’s sake, this woman was tiring me out. ‘Another good answer. All right, tell me this. Who told you that they’d found a gun here?’

‘The police.’

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘They may have said they were the police, but they weren’t.’

I’d been thinking of jumping her, maybe throwing the coffee first, but there wasn’t much point now. Over her shoulder, I could see Solomon’s two followers moving slowly through the sitting-room, the older one holding a large revolver out in front of him in a two-handed grip, the younger one just smiling. I decided to let the wheels of justice do some grinding.

‘It doesn’t matter who told me,’ said Sarah.

‘On the contrary, I think it matters a lot. If a salesman tells you that a washing machine’s great, that’s one thing. But if the Archbishop of Canterbury tells you it’s great, and that it removes dirt even at low temperatures, that’s quite different.’

‘What are you…’

She heard them when they were only a couple of feet away, and as she turned, the younger one grabbed her wrist and turned it down and outwards in a highly competent manner. She gave out a short yelp, and the gun slid from her hand.

I picked it up and passed it, butt first, to the older follower. Keen to show what a good boy I was really, if only the world would understand.

By the time O’Neal and Solomon arrived, Sarah and I were comfortably plugged into the sofa, with the two followers arranged round the door, and none of us making much in the way of conversation. With O’Neal bustling about the place, there suddenly seemed to be an awful lot of people in the flat. I offered to nip out and get a cake, but O’Neal showed me his fiercest ‘the defence of the Western world is on my shoulders’ expression, so we all went quiet and stared at our hands.

After some whispering with the followers, who then quietly withdrew, O’Neal paced this way and that, picking things up and curling his lip at them. He was obviously waiting for something, and it wasn’t in the room or about to come through the door, so I got up and walked across to the phone. It rang as I reached it. Very occasionally, life’s like that.

I picked up the receiver.

‘Graduate Studies,’ said a harsh, American voice. ‘Who is this?’

‘That O’Neal?’ There was a spot of anger in the voice now. Not a man you’d ask for a cup of sugar.

‘No, but Mr O’Neal is here,’ I said. ‘Who’s speaking?’

‘Put O’Neal on the goddamn phone, will you?’ said the voice. I turned and saw O’Neal striding towards me, hand outstretched.

‘Go and get some manners somewhere,’ I said, and hung up.

There was a brief silence, and then lots of things seemed to happen at once. Solomon was leading me back to the sofa, not very roughly but not very gently either, O’Neal was shouting to the followers, the followers were shouting at each other, and the phone was ringing again.

O’Neal grabbed it and immediately started fiddling with the flex, which didn’t sit well with his previous attempts to convey masterly composure. It was obvious that, in O’Neal’s world, there were many smaller cheeses than the harsh American on the other end of the line.

Solomon shoved me back down next to Sarah, who shrank away in disgust. It really is quite something to be hated by so many people in your own home.

O’Neal nodded and yessed for a minute or so, then delicately replaced the receiver. He looked at Sarah.

‘Miss Woolf,’ he said, as politely as he could manage, ‘you are to present yourself to a Mr Russell Barnes at the American Embassy as soon as you can. One of these gentlemen will drive you.’ O’Neal looked away, as if expecting her immediately to jump to her feet and be gone. Sarah stayed where she was.

‘Screw you in the ass with an anglepoise lamp,’ she said. I laughed.

As it happens, I was the only one who did, and O’Neal fired off one of his increasingly famous looks in my direction. But Sarah was still glaring at him.

‘I want to know what’s being done about this guy,’ she said. She jerked her head at me, so I thought it best to stop laughing.

‘Mr Lang is our concern, Miss Woolf,’ said O’Neal. ‘You yourself have a responsibility to your State Department, by…’