I thought Rayner might be able to answer at least some of these questions, so when I judged myself well enough to get up and shuffle around, I borrowed a dressing-gown and headed upstairs to the Barrington Ward.

When Solomon had told me that Rayner was also in theMiddlesexHospital, I’d been, for a moment at least, surprised. It seemed ironic that the two of us should end up getting repaired in the same shop, after all we’d been through together. But then, as Solomon pointed out, there aren’t many hospitals left inLondon these days, and if you hurt yourself anywhere south of the Watford Gap, you’re liable to end up in the Middlesex sooner or later.

Rayner had a room to himself, directly opposite the nurses’ desk, and he was wired up to a lot of bleeping boxes. His eyes were closed, either from sleep or coma, and his head was wrapped in a huge, cartoon bandage, as if Road Runner had dropped that safe just once too often. And he wore blue flannelette pyjamas, which, perhaps for the first time in a lot of years, made him look child-like. I stood by his bed for a while, feeling sorry for him, until a nurse appeared and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted a lot of things, but would settle for knowing Rayner’s first name.

Bob, she said. She stood at my elbow, with her hand on the door-knob, wanting me to leave, but deferring to my dressing-gown.

I’m sorry, Bob, I thought.

There you were, just doing what you were told, what you were paid to do, and some arse comes along and hits you with a marble Buddha. That’s rough.

Of course, I knew that Bob wasn’t exactly a choirboy. He wasn’t even the boy who bullies the choirboy. At the very best, he was the older brother of the boy who bullies the boy who bullies the choirboy. Solomon had looked Rayner up in the MoD files, and found that he’d been chucked from the Royal Welch Fusiliers for black-marketeering - anything from army boot laces to Saracen armoured cars had gone through the barrack gates under Bob Rayner’s jersey - but even so, I was the one who’d hit him, so I was the one who felt sorry for him.

I put what was left of Solomon’s grapes on the table by his bed, and left.

Men and women in white coats tried to get me to stay in hospital for a few more days, but I shook my head and told them I was fine. They tutted, and made me sign a few things, and then they showed me how to change the dressing under my arm and told me to come straight back if the wound started to feel hot or itchy.

I thanked them for their kindness, and refused their offer of a wheelchair. Which was just as well, because the lift had stopped working.

And then I limped on to a bus and went home.

My flat was where I’d left it, but seemed smaller than I remembered. There were no messages on the answering machine and nothing in the fridge besides the half-pint of natural yoghurt and stick of celery that I’d inherited from the previous tenant.

My chest was hurting, as they’d said it would, so I took myself off to the sofa and watched a race meeting atDoncaster, with a large tumbler of I’m Sure I’ve Seen That Grouse Somewhere Before at my elbow.

I must have dozed off for a while, and it was the phone that woke me. I sat up quickly, gasping at the pain from my armpit, and reached for the whisky bottle. Empty. I felt really terrible. I looked at my watch as I lifted the receiver.Ten past eight, or twenty to two. I couldn’t tell which.

‘Mr Lang?’

Male. American. Click, whirr. Come on, I know this one. ‘Yes.’

‘Mr Thomas Lang?’ Got it. Yes, Mike, I’ll name that voice in five. I shook my head to try and wake myself up, and felt something rattling.

‘How do you do, Mr Woolf?’ I said.

Silence at the other end. And then: ‘A lot better’n you, from what I hear.’

‘Not so,’ I said. ‘Yeah?’

‘My biggest worry in life has always been having no stories to tell my grandchildren. My time with the Woolf family should last them until they’re about fifteen, I’d say.’

I thought I heard him laugh, but it could have been a crackle on the line. Or it could have been O’Neal’s lot, tripping over their bugging equipment.

‘Listen, Lang,’ said Woolf, ‘I’d like us to meet up some place.’

‘Of course you would, Mr Woolf. Let me see. This time you’d like to offer me money to perform a vasectomy on you without you noticing. Am I close?’

‘I’d like to explain, if that’s okay by you. You like to eat Italian?’

I thought of the celery and the yoghurt and realised that I like to eat Italian very much indeed. But there was a problem here.

‘Mr Woolf,’ I said, ‘before you name a place, make sure you can book it for at least ten people. I’ve a feeling this may be a party line.’

‘That’s okay,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘You got a tourist guide right by your phone.’ I looked down at the table and saw a red paperback.Ewan’s Guide toLondon.It looked new, and I certainly hadn’t bought it. ‘Listen carefully,’ said Woolf, ‘I want you to turn to page twenty-six, fifth entry. See you there in thirty minutes.’

There was a kerfuffle on the line, and I thought for a moment he’d hung up, but then his voice came back. ‘Lang?’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t leave the guide-book in your apartment.’ I took a deep and weary breath.

‘Mr Woolf,’ I said, ‘I may be stupid, but I’m not stupid.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

The line went dead.

The fifth entry on page twenty-six of Ewan’s comprehensive guide to losing dollars in the Greater London Area was ‘Giare,216Roseland,WC2,Ital,60 ppair con, Visa, Mast, Amex’ followed by three sets of crossed spoons. One glance through the book told me that Ewan was pretty sparing with his three spoon motif, so at least I had a reasonable supper to look forward to.

The next problem was how to get there without towing along a dozen brown-raincoated civil servants behind me. I couldn’t be sure that Woolf would be able to do the same, but if he’d gone to the trouble of the guide-book trick, which I have to admit I liked, he must have been fairly sure that he could move around without being bothered by strange men.

I let myself out of the flat and went down to the street door. My helmet was there, resting on top of the gas meter, along with a pair of battered leather gloves. I opened the front door and stuck my head out into the street. No felt- hattedfigure straightened up from a lamppost and tossed away an unfiltered cigarette. But then again, I hadn’t really expected that.

Fifty yards to the left I could see a dark greenLeyland van with a rubber aerial sticking out of the roof, and to the right, on the far side of the street, a red and white striped roadmenders tent. Both of them could have been innocent.