I turned my head and looked at her. 'For God's sake, go and put on some clothes,' I said. 'You'll die of pneumonia.'

When I put the passport and a few other papers into my pocket and walked into the hall she was trudging disconsolately up the stairs. As I walked towards the front door she screamed, 'Come back, Max!'

I shut the door gently on her shout, closing an era of my life. Sic transit Gloria mundi. A lousy pun but a true one.

I suppose if I hadn't left Gloria I wouldn't have gone on with the Billson case. Billson himself had ceased to be a security matter and was merely a half-way maniac gone on an ancestor-worshipping bender. He was of no concern to anyone but himself and, possibly, Alix Aarvik. But I had left Gloria, which put me in a somewhat ambiguous position. It had already been agreed that I would take a holiday, partly for my own benefit and partly to give free rein to Jack Ellis. The trouble was that I didn't feel like a holiday; I couldn't see myself toasting on the sands of Montego Bay, as Charlie had suggested. And so the devil found work for idle hands Besides, I had been assaulted, and if nothing else demanded that something should be done, company policy did.

So I asked Jack Ellis to come and see me at my club. Ellis had joined us four years earlier – young, bright and eager to learn. He was still young, but that didn't worry me; Napoleon was only twenty-six when he was General of the Army of Italy and licked hell out of the Austrians. Jack Ellis was twenty-seven, something that might hinder him when negotiating with some of the stuffier chairmen of companies, but time would cure that In the meantime he was very good and getting better.

I took him aside into the cardroom which was empty in the afternoon. For a while we talked about his job and then I brought him up-to-date on the Billson story. He was puzzled as anyone about the whole affair.

'Jack,' I said. 'I want you to find Billson.'

He gave me an old-fashioned look. 'But he's not our pigeon any more. Apart from the fact that Whensley are running their own show now, Billson is out of it.'

1, said, 'When this firm was started certain rules were laid down. Do you remember Westlake, the security guard we had at Clennel Enterprises?'

Ellis's face was grave. 'I remember. It happened just after I joined the firm. Shot in the leg during a pay-roll snatch. He had to have it amputated.'

'But do you remember what happened to the man who shot him? We got to him before the coppers did. We handed him to the law intact, although I'd have dearly loved to, break his leg. We also made sure that the story got around. And that's the rule, Jack – we look after our own. If any gun-happy bandit hurts one of our men he knows he has to cope with the police and our boys. And to coin a phrase – "we try harder". Got the picture?'

He smiled faintly and nodded. 'In this business it makes sense,' he acknowledged.

'The top-ranking coppers aren't too happy about it,' I said, 'because they don't like private armies. But we rub along with the middle level very nicely. Anyway, a member of Stafford Security Consultants Ltd has been assaulted, and the fact it was the boss makes no difference to the principle. I'm not on a personal vendetta but I want those boys nailed.'

'Okay – but Billson!'

'He's got to be connected somehow, so dig into him. The police aren't doing much because it's no crime to leave a job. They've got him on a list and if they come across him they'll ask him a few polite questions. I can't wait that long. All the villains in London know I've been done over, and they're laughing their heads off.'

'We should be able to get a line on Billson,' said Jack. 'It's not easy for a man to disappear into thin air.'

'Another thing; no one is to know any of this except me, you and the man you put on the job.'

'Not even Charlie Malleson?'

'Not even him. I suspect jiggery-pokery at high levels.' I saw the expression on Ellis's face, and said irascibly, 'Not Charlie, for God's sake! But I want to cut out even the possibility of a leak. Some of our top industrialists are doing some queer things – Sir Andrew McGovern for one. Now, I want a thorough rundown on him; particularly a survey of any relationship he might have had with Paul Billson and with his secretary, Alix Aarvik.'

'Okay,' said Jack. 'I'll get it started right away.'

I pondered for a moment. 'Open a routine file on this. Your clients are Michelmore, Veasey and Templeton; send them the bills in the normal way.' As he raised his eyebrows I said shortly, 'They're my solicitors.'

'Right.'

'And good luck with the new job.' It wouldn't be fair to Jack if he got the idea that when I came back everything would be as it was before, so I said, 'If you don't drop too many clangers it's yours for good. I'm destined for higher things, such as busting into Europe.'

He went away a very happy man.

It's not easy for a man to disappear into thin air.

Those praiseworthy citizens who form and join societies dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties are quite right in their concern about the 'data bank' society. At Stafford Security we weren't a whit concerned about civil liberties; what we were doing was preserving the industrial secrecy of our clients, which doesn't amount to the same thing at all. As a corollary, because we protected against snooping we understood it, and were well equipped to do some snooping ourselves should the mood take us.

The bloodhounds were turned on to Paul Billson. No man living in a so-called civilized society can escape documentation. His name, and sometimes a number attached to his name, is listed on forms without end – driving licence, radio and TV licence, dog licence, income tax return, insurance applications, telephone accounts, gas and electricity accounts, passport applications, visa applications, hire purchase agreements, birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate. It seems that half the population is pushing around pieces of paper concerning the other half – and vice versa.

It takes a trained man with a hazy sense of ethics to ferret out another man's life from the confusion but it can be done, given the time and the money – the less time the more money it takes, that's all. Jack Ellis hoisted Michelmore, Veasey and Templeton's bill a few notches and the information started to come in.

Paul Billson applied for a passport the day after he disappeared, appearing in person at the London Passport Office to fill in the form. The same day he applied for an international driving licence. The following day he bought a Land-Rover off the shelf at the main London showroom, paid cash on the barrel and drove it away.

We lost him for a couple of weeks until he picked up his passport, then a quick tour of the consulates by a smooth operator revealed that he had applied for and been granted visas for Niger, Mali, Chad and Libya. That led to the question of what he was doing with the Land-Rover. He had got his green insurance card for foreign travel but a run around the shipping companies found nothing at all. Then our man at Heathrow turned up an invoice which told that a Mr Bill-son had air-freighted a Land-Rover to Algiers.

Whatever had happened to Paul had blown him wide open. After a lifetime of inactive griping about injustice, of cold internal anger, of ineffectual mumblings, he had suddenly erupted and was spending money as though he had a private mint. Air freight isn't cheap.

What Jack had dug up about Billson's finances was fantastic. The ?12,000 in Paul's deposit account was but the tip of an iceberg, and he had nearly?65,000 to play around with. 'I don't know where the hell he got it,' said Jack.

'I do,' I said. 'He saved it. When he vanished he was on?8000 a year and spending about?2500. You do that for enough years and are careful with your investments and you'll soon rack up?65,000.'