I wondered what the driver thought of the conversation. Yes, sir, I’d heard him say when we came out. He had a Glasgow voice.

Fortunately the journey ended quickly. We got out and I felt sick at the sight of the hotel I had been questioned about the previous night. They put a hand each on my arms, just above the elbow. They didn’t grip hard but it was extraordinarily unpleasant.

Inside, I saw the manager who had spared a quick word to me and the other temporaries at Christmas. The doorman too I recognised, and one of the porters. It felt as if everyone was staring at me, but I doubt if any of the guests realised what was going on.

One of the hotel staff led us along a corridor.

‘We’ll manage from here,’ the dark one said to him.

‘Do you know how to find your way upstairs? There’s a back way.’

‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll come back to the desk. You can take us.’

‘I could wait. The hotel would prefer as much discretion as possible.’

They looked at him silently.

‘Well,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘I’ll be at the desk.’

When he’d gone, one said, ‘Discretion – make you bloody sick,’ and the other agreed, ‘Much they care.’

‘Show us the door.’

‘What door?’

‘Games. They said you were a comedian.’

The hand on each bicep urged me forward. Before the end of the corridor, we stopped beside a door. It had the look of painted metal like a fire door.

‘Push it.’

‘Give it a push,’ the other one repeated.

I shoved and it swung open. There was a narrow area ten feet or so square. The windows facing us had ventilators set in at the top. You could not see through them but one had been pulled down and there was a clatter of kitchen noises and a man’s voice mauling a pop song. I had washed dishes somewhere behind those windows.

‘Lock’s been broken.’

The dark one was doing all the talking now. He pulled me round by the arm.

‘Take a look.’

There was a metal bar that must have been intended to slot into the wall.

‘It’s been forced,’ I said.

‘That’s right.’ He sounded like a master whose dimmest pupil had just managed an answer. ‘You know anybody who could do that?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘People come along here all the time,’ he said. ‘Somebody would notice if you messed up the wall. Whoever did this did it so there was no mess. And he must have done it fast. Fast as a bleeding gorilla. You know anybody like that?’

‘Jock here could do it,’ the fair one said, finding his voice again. ‘Feel your muscle?’

And he put his hand back on my arm and rubbed the bicep.

‘Ooh, ooh,’ he did a parody of camp appreciation.

‘Cut it out!’ I said pulling away.

‘Watch it! We’ll turn you over for attempted escape.’

‘Might hit us with his stick.’

‘What’s he bleeding got it for anyway? Ridiculous. Desperate character and they leave him with a weapon.’

He took the stick out of my hand and weighed it reflectively.

‘It ain’t heavy, but it don’t mean you couldn’t manage a bit of GBH. He could poke you in the balls with it, Wally.’

‘I need it to walk. That’s why they left it. I’ve hurt my foot.’

‘No!’ he said in sympathetic disbelief.

He moved too quickly and anyway his grinning face gave me no warning. Before I could react, he stepped on the injured foot. The pain was so bad and unexpected that I blacked out.

It could only have been for a second. I was leaning against the wall – the fair one had stopped grinning. He held out the stick. I took it.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

And he grinned.

‘Outside,’ the dark one said and moved me out into the area. When I looked up, the sky was blue and far away at the top of the funnel.

‘We’re interested in the window four floors up. Don’t need to tell you, though, do we?’

‘Why not? I don’t—’

I broke off. What was the use?

‘You don’t . . .? Nobody ever teach you it’s manners to finish a sentence?’

‘I think I should have a lawyer.’

The laugh they gave sounded genuinely amused.

‘Bit late for that, my old son,’ one said. And the other, ‘You’ve been watching those late-night movies. But this isn’t fucking America, it’s England.’

‘Like fuck it is,’ I said.

They looked at me as if I had given them a present.

‘England starts a hundred miles south of here,’ I said lamely.

‘You’re a bit of a fanatic, aren’t you?’ the dark one said.

‘Because I don’t think this is England? That’s not fanaticism, it’s geography.’

‘He’s full of chat, isn’t he?’ the fair one said.

‘Full of piss.’

The singer in the kitchen beyond the lowered window had his repertory of pop songs interrupted. Something had gone wrong and an immediate uproar of angry voices flared until it subsided under the dominance of a single spate of heavily accented cursing.

‘Another piss artist,’ the fair one said. ‘Bleeding wogs.’

I wanted to smash them down. That night in the Union when I had bumped the elbow of the guy who turned out to be a medical student. Sorry, I’d said. Some of the beer splashed on his trousers. Just spots. It was nothing. Beer from his glass poured down the front of my jacket. I remembered that and his fat fee-paying-school face mouthing at me, but I didn’t remember hitting him. Although his jaw had been broken, they had smoothed things over. No penalty: mostly because I had been ill that night. Nobody knew how much it frightened me that I couldn’t remember.

The Homicidal Pacifist, Donald Baxter had named me after that.

‘You’re wasting time with me,’ I said. ‘Can’t you get that through your head? I’m not stupid – I don’t know anything about – this.’ I jerked my arm free and pointed to the windows above us. ‘Somebody broke in from the corridor – somebody climbed up there. I don’t know why anybody would want to do that. But I couldn’t. Do you understand that? I hate heights. I don’t know what happened up there. I don’t know why— why you should blame me.’

They looked at me seriously. For a moment, I thought I had got through to them.

‘Like a handkerchief, flower?’ the fair one said.

‘You didn’t know who, did you? Not at Christmas,’ the dark one said. ‘Not when you were planning it. But somebody, sooner or later. Place like this, stood to reason, sooner or later there’d be somebody your lot wanted. Only as usual with amateurs you got caught.’

‘We can fit you up for this one. You’re in the shit.’ The fair one mouthed the word like a soft fruit. ‘We’re the only friends you’ve got left.’

‘He’s right, you know,’ the dark one said in a kindly way. ‘He’s a bit rough, but he’s not wrong. Take the rest of your lot. Suppose they stay in the clear. Who’s left? It’s all down to you. They’ll put you inside and post the key to Robert the fucking Bruce. Since he’s dead – it’ll get lost. Your old mum’ll be dead before you get out.’

‘Your kid bloody sister’ll be dead.’

‘How did you—’

I shut up again. It was stupid to show I was upset by anything they said. It was just that I hadn’t expected them to mention Jess, who was only eight years old.

‘We know everything worth knowing about you,’ the dark one said. ‘You’d be surprised how much we know about anybody – if he gets important enough.’

‘Important!’ the fair one spat between my feet. ‘Bloody amateur! His lips are sealed. He’s in a dream world. Honour among thieves.’

‘Not thieves,’ the dark one said. ‘Idealists. That’s the word, isn’t it, son? Idealists . . . Patriots.’

I was like a ball they passed back and foward. We looked at one another. Their game was one I didn’t know. The rules changed. I lost.

‘Patriots.’

Going up in the lift, the dark one said, not maliciously, but in a quiet way, like advice, ‘You don’t want to mind your head about geography, son. We’ll decide the geography. That’s our job.’

‘We’re geography teachers,’ the fair one said.