He nodded.

‘Twenty-nine thousand, four hundred and eleven pounds and seventy-six pence. Were you thinking of transferring the money, Mr Lang? Because we have a variety of high-yielding accounts that would suit your needs.’

‘My needs?’

‘Yes. Ease of access, high interest, sixty day bonus, it’s up to you.’

It seemed strange somehow, hearing a human being use phrases like that. Until that point in my life, I’d only ever seen them on advertising billboards.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Great. For the time being, Mr Halkerston, my needs are simply for you to keep the money in a room with a decent lock on the door.’ He stared back at me blankly. ‘I’m more interested to know the origins of this transfer.’ His face went from blank to highly blank. ‘Who gave me this money, Mr Halkerston?’

I could tell that unsolicited donations were not a regular feature of banking life, and it took a few more moments of blankness, followed by some paper-rustling, before Halkerston was back at the net.

‘The payment was made in cash,’ he said, ‘so I have no actual record of the origin. If you’ll hold on a second, I can get a copy of the credit slip.’ He pressed an intercom button and asked for Ginny, who duly trundled in bearing a folder. While Halkerston browsed through it, I had to wonder how Ginny could hold her head up under the weight of cosmetics smeared all over her face. Underneath it all, she may have been quite pretty. Or she may have been Dirk Bogarde. I will never know.

‘Here we are,’ said Halkerston. ‘The name of the payer has been left out, but there is a signature. Offer. Or possibly Offee. T Offee, that’s it.’

Paulie’s chambers were in theMiddleTemple, which I remembered him telling me was somewhere near Fleet Street, and I got there eventually with the help of a black cab. It’s not the way I usually travel, but while I was at the bank I decided there was no harm in withdrawing a couple of hundred pounds worth of my blood money for expenses.

Paulie himself was in court on a hit-and-run case, playing his part as a human brake-pad on the wheels of justice, so I had no special entree to the chambers of Milton Crowley Spencer. Instead, I had to submit to the clerk’s interrogation on the nature of my ‘problem’ and by the time he’d finished, I felt worse than I’ve ever done in any venereal clinic.

Not that I’ve been to a lot of venereal clinics.

Having passed the preliminary means test, I was then leftto cool my heels in a waiting-room filled with back numbers ofExpressions, the journal for American Express cardholders. So I sat there and read about bespoke trouser-makers in Jermyn Street, and sock-weavers in Northampton, and hat-growers in Panama, and how likely it was that Kerry Packer would win the Veuve Cliquot Polo Championship at Smith’s Lawn this year, and generally caught up on all the big stories happening behind the news, until the clerk came back and raised a pert couple of eyebrows at me.

I was ushered into a large, oak-panelled room, with shelves ofRegina versus The Rest Of The World on three walls, and a row of wooden filing cabinets along the fourth. There was a photograph on the desk of three teenage children, who looked as if they’d been bought from a catalogue, and next to it, a signed picture of Denis Thatcher. I was chewing on the peculiar fact that both these photographs were pointing outwards from the desk, when a connecting door opened, and I was suddenly in the presence of Spencer.

And quite a presence it was. He was a taller version of Rex Harrison, with greying hair, half-moon spectacles and a shirt so white it must have been running off the mains. I didn’t actually see him start the clock as he sat down.

‘Mr Fincham, sorry to keep you, do have a seat.’

He gestured around the room, as if inviting me to take my pick, but there was only one chair. I sat down, and immediately jumped to my feet again as the chair let out a scream of creaking, tearing wood. It was so loud, and so agonised, that I could picture people in the street outside stopping, and looking up at the window, and wondering about calling a policeman. Spencer didn’t seem to notice it.

‘Don’t think I’ve seen you at the club,’ he said, smiling expensively.

I sat down again, to another roar from the chair, and tried to find a position which might allow our conversation to be more or less audible above the howling woodwork.

‘Club?’ I said, and then looked down as he gestured at my tie. ‘Ah, you mean the Garrick?’

He nodded, still smiling.

‘No, well,’ I said, ‘I don’t get up to town as often as I’d like.’ I waved my hand in a way that implied a couple of thousand acres in Wiltshire and plenty of labradors. He nodded, as if he could picture the place exactly, and might pop over for a spot of lunch the next time he was in the neighbourhood.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘how can I help?’

‘Well, this is rather delicate…’ I began.

‘Mr Fincham,’ he interrupted smoothly, ‘if the day ever comes when a client comes to me and says that the matter upon which he or she requires my advice is not delicate, I shall hang up my wig for good.’ From the look on his face, I could see that I was meant to take this as a witticism. All I could think was that it had probably cost me thirty quid.

‘Well, that’s very comforting,’ I said, acknowledging the joke. We smiled comfortably at each other. ‘The fact is,’ I went on, ‘that a friend of mine told me recently that you had been extremely helpful in introducing him to some people with unusual skills.’

There was a pause, as I’d rather suspected there might be. ‘I see,’ said Spencer. His smile faded slightly, the glasses came off, and the chin lifted five degrees. ‘Might I be favoured with the name of this friend of yours?’

‘I’d rather not say just at the moment. He told me that he needed… a sort of bodyguard, someone who would be prepared to carry out some fairly unorthodox duties, and that you furnished him with some names.’

Spencer leaned back in his chair and surveyed me. Head to toe. I could tell that the interview was already over, and that now he was just deciding on the most elegant way of telling me. After a while, he took in a slow breath through his finely wrought nose.

‘It is possible,’ he said, ‘that you have misunderstood the services we offer here, Mr Fincham. We are a firm of barristers. Advocates. We argue cases before the bench. That is our function. We are not, and this I think is where the confusion may have arisen, an employment agency. If your friend obtained satisfaction here, then I am glad. But I hope and believe that it had more to do with the legal advice we were able to offer than with any recommendations on the engagement of staff.’ In his mouth,‘staff’had a rather nasty sound to it. ‘Might it not be preferable for you to contact your friend in order to secure whatever information it is you require?’