Dead Men's s Boots

‘Whatever you can find, Mister Castor – whatever you can tell me –’

And I could have taken the invitation right there, but like a coward I veered too. I grabbed a question from my mind’s cluttered desktop and waved it like Chamberlain waved his famous autograph from Adolf Hitler.

‘Doug mentioned spraining his ankle,’ I said. ‘Was that something that really happened?’

‘Yes.’ Jan sounded surprised. ‘A few months ago. He was coming down a ladder and his foot slipped. He was in agony. The stupid bastards who are running that site didn’t even have a first-aid kit.

And that meant they wouldn’t let anyone call an ambulance, because they didn’t want anyone to twig that they weren’t up to code. Doug had to limp around the corner – two of his mates carried him part of the way – so he could make the call from somewhere else and not get them into trouble. Sodding cowboys. He’s always worked for sodding cowboys!’

I looked at my watch. It was half past eleven and I really needed to be hitting the road.

I told Jan, very quickly, what Juliet and I were going to try to do, and I told her I’d let her know how it came out. Then I hung up and went underground.

The Reflections Café Bar turned out to be on Wilton Road, directly opposite the front entrance to Victoria Station and offering a really top-notch view of the bus shelter.

The name promised something eclectic and cosmopolitan. The reality was a narrow glass booth jutting out onto the pavement, containing a coffee machine, a fridge full of Carling Black Label, a counter top and six chairs.

A teenaged girl in a maid’s uniform that looked as though it had to have been ordered from a fetish shop took my order for a double espresso with a nod {so nifand a smile, and I sat down. She was the only person in the place apart from a stocky, balding man in a drab-looking mid-brown suit, who had a film of sweat on his face as he worked through the Times sudoku – as though sudoku was an illicit thrill of some kind.

I sat down well within his field of vision, but he didn’t react and didn’t seem to see me at all. It was five past twelve by this time, so there was a chance that my man had already been and gone. That seemed more likely when my coffee came and he still hadn’t showed. Taking a sip of the tepid liquid, I stared out of the window at the bus shelter across the street and idly scanned the faces of the people waiting for the number 73.