‘Well that’s the problem,’ I said. ‘My friend has gone away.’ There was a pause, and Spencer blinked slowly. There is something strangely insulting about a slow blink. I know, because I use it myself.

‘You are welcome to use the telephone in the clerk’s office.’

‘He didn’t leave a number.’

‘Then, alas, Mr Fincham, you are in difficulty. Now, if you will excuse me…’ He slid the glasses back on to his nose and busied himself with some papers on his desk.

‘My friend wanted someone,’ I said, ‘who would be prepared to kill someone.’

Off came the glasses, up went the chin. ‘Indeed.’

A long pause.

‘Indeed,’ he said again. ‘That in itself being an unlawful act, it is highly improbable that he would have received any assistance from an employee of this firm, Mr Fincham…’

‘He assured me that you were most helpful…’

‘Mr Fincham, I shall be candid.’ The voice had stiffened considerably, and I realised that Spencer would be good fun to watch in court. ‘The suspicion has formed in my mind that you may be acting here in the capacity ofagent provocateur.’The French accent was confident and immaculate. He had a villa inProvence, natch. ‘From what motive, I cannot tell,’ he continued. ‘Nor am I particularly interested. I do, however, decline to say anything further to you.’

‘Unless you’re in the presence of a lawyer.’

‘Good day to you, Mr Fincham.’ Glasses on.

‘My friend also told me that you handled the payment of his new employee.’

No answer. I knew there weren’t going to be any more answers from Mr Spencer, but I thought I’d press on anyway. ‘My friend told me that you signed the credit slip yourself,’ I said. ‘In your own hand.’

‘I am rapidly tiring of news of your friend, Mr Fincham. I repeat, good day to you.’

I got to my feet and moved towards the door. The chair screamed its relief.

‘Does the offer of the telephone still stand?’ He didn’t even look up.

‘The cost of the call will be added to your bill.’

‘Bill for what?’ I said. ‘You haven’t given me anything.’

‘I have given you my time, Mr Fincham. If you have no desire to make use of it, that is entirely your concern.’

I opened the door.

‘Well, thanks anyway, Mr Spencer. By the way…’ I waited until he had looked up. ‘There’s some ugly talk at the Garrick that you cheat at bridge. I told the chaps that it was all rubbish and tommy-rot, but you know what these things are like. Chaps get an idea in their head. Thought you ought to know.’

Pathetic. But all I could think of at the time.

The clerk sensed that I was not a terriblygrata persona,and warned me, peevishly, to expect a bill for services in the next few days.

I thanked him for his kindness and turned towards the staircase. As I did so, I noticed that someone else was now treading my path through back numbers ofExpressions,the journal for American Express card-holders.

Short fat men in grey suits: this is a large category.

Short fat men in grey suits whose scrotums I have held in a hotel bar inAmsterdam: this is a very small category.

Tiny, in fact.

Five

Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you shall see by that which way the wind is.

JOHN SELDEN

To follow somebody, without them knowing that you’re doing it, is not the doddle they make it seem in films. I’ve had some experience of professional following, and a lot more experience of professional going back to the office and saying ‘we lost him’. Unless your quarry is deaf, tunnel-sighted and lame, you need at least a dozen people and fifteen thousand quids-worth of short-wave radio to make a decent go of it.

The problem with McCluskey was that he was, in the jargon phrase, ‘a player’ - somebody who knows that they are a possible target, and has some idea of what to do about it. I couldn’t risk getting too close, and the only way to avoid that was by running; hanging back on the straights, sprinting flat-out as he rounded corners, pulling up in time to avoid him if he doubled back. None of this would have been countenanced by a professional outfit, of course, because it ignored the possibility that he had someone else watching his back, who might begin to wonder at this sprinting, shuffling, window-shopping lunatic.

The first stretch was easy enough. McCluskey waddled his way from Fleet Street along towards the Strand, but when he reached theSavoy, he skipped across the road and headed north intoCovent Garden. There he dawdled amongst the myriad pointless shops, and stood for five minutes watching a juggler outside theActorsChurch. Refreshed, he set off at a brisk pace towardsSt Martin ’s Lane, crossed over on his way toLeicester Square, and then sold me a dummy by suddenly turning south intoTrafalgar Square.

By the time we reached the bottom of the Haymarket, the sweat was pouring off me and I was praying for him to hail a taxi. He didn’t do it until he got toLower Regent Street, and I caught another one an agonising twenty seconds later.

Well, obviously it was another one. Even the amateur follower knows that you don’t get into the same taxi as the person you’re following.

I threw myself into the seat and shouted at the driver to ‘follow that cab’, and then realised what a strange thing that is to say in real life. The cabbie didn’t seem to find it so.

‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘is he sleeping with your wife, or are you sleeping with his?’

I laughed as though this was the grandest thing I’d heard in years, which is what you have to do with cabbies if you want them to take you to the right place by the right route.

McCluskey got out at the Ritz, but he must have told his driver to stay and keep the meter running. I left him for three minutes before doing the same with my cab, but, as I opened the door, McCluskey came scooting back out and we were off again.

We crawled along Piccadilly for a while, and then turned right into some narrow empty streets that I didn’t know at all. This was the sort of territory where skilled craftspeople hand build underpants for American Express card-holders.

I leaned forward to tell the driver not to get too close, but he’d done this sort of thing before, or seen it done on:television, and he hung back a good distance.

McCluskey’s cab came to rest inCork Street. I saw him pay his driver, and I told my man to trickle past and drop me two hundred yards further down the street.