In the suite on the fourth floor, there were two men I recognised. They had been two of the quiet faces, elderly watchful men who had not intervened in the questioning but had gathered glances during the hours of the night. I had known they were the ones who mattered.

My Cockney cross-talk act gave them scant respect. The ‘sirs’ were perfunctory.

‘The bedroom? Through here would it be, sir?’

I had no choice but to join the procession. It was a bedroom, but with a television and all the required bits and pieces to remind you the riffraff were kept outside. The food was good too – I had scraped enough of it off cold plates to remember that. The bed hadn’t been made.

In luxury hotels beds don’t get left unmade – unless something has happened.

Even then I didn’t realise. I thought of a robbery – or someone caught in bed with the King of Spain. The Cockneys carried that shade with them – of diplomats blackmailed, refugee scientists; people like them had been around since the Medes invented laws and a state to justify them.

‘His own detective heard nothing?’

‘No. He became suspicious, though, and it was he who found—’

‘Yes.’ The dark one interrupted him. ‘But since no one’s told chummy here anything about that he doesn’t know what was found. That’s right, isn’t it, son?’

I hated him more than anyone I had ever met – except his fair partner.

‘You’re satisfied things were tight at your end?’

‘Of course,’ one of the older men said frowning. ‘We’re not unused to this kind of thing. Car park had been checked out – no access in case of any bomb nonsense. Surveillance – discreetly – in the corridors and the rooms gone over with a toothcomb before . . .’

‘Maybe you were too discreet,’ the dark one said.

The man who had described the security arrangements went a strange purple colour. Before he could say anything, the other senior officer crossed to the window.

‘Who could have anticipated this?’ He twitched aside the curtain. ‘A quite exceptional affair. I still find it difficult to—’ His voice faded as he leaned out. He re-emerged looking persuasively startled. ‘And that door downstairs – incredible.’

‘Incredible like in fake?’ the dark man asked.

‘Fake? What fake?’ For a distinguished senior officer, he sounded inappropriately tentative.

‘You said “incredible.” I wondered if that’s what you meant . . . sir. Unbelievable – that’s what I wondered. If you don’t believe all that – the door downstairs, the window.’ He too went over and peered out. ‘It’s a hell of a climb, and then doing a window like this from outside . . . I can see anybody might wonder if it was a put up job.’

The senior officer gave him a look that seemed to me full of dislike. I have unusually sharp hearing, not always a comfortable gift. I can eavesdrop on a conversation three tables away in a restaurant. People don’t realise. Now I could hear them as they murmured at the window.

‘Don’t like your attitude. The detectives immediately involved – as usual – weren’t our people. If you want to suggest an inside job, you’d better start looking nearer home.’

‘Don’t misunderstand me, sir. I wasn’t suggesting—’

‘That’s all right then, isn’t it?’

‘Certainly. But you understand we’re here to get results—’

‘Well, what about this fellow? Do you prefer to have them standing around while you discuss possibilities? Is that how you people handle suspects? Or am I missing something – new technique, is it?’

‘Not a technique, no. We don’t need technique for this fellow. Seems to me he’s a dead duck.’

I missed the rest of the conversation. I was thinking so hard about what he meant that I lost my sense of the place and sat down on the bed.

‘Get up out of that!’ the second of the local men screamed in rage.

I fell off the bed – shot up like a cat that has had its tail pulled.

‘He’s a cool one,’ the dark man said. He and the older man came forward from the window. The four of them made a half circle hemming me in against the bed.

‘Cool? Cold-blooded. That really is cold-blooded.’

‘And bloody insolence,’ the other senior officer said.

The Cockneys ignored this local repartee. They waited quietly, two solid men like matched bookends or a pair of duelling pistols. Even standing relaxed, they had their weight balanced. I didn’t fancy my chances of making a break for the door. Even if I had, there would have been no point. If they were secret police, I had no border I could cross to get away from them. There was nowhere for me to go.

‘You don’t mind sitting on a bed where someone’s died?’ the dark man said.

I should have known that it was death that had brought us here. Accusing me of one murder without reason or sense, they could extend the list until I had more victims than Jack the Ripper.

‘Somebody’s died in most beds,’ I said.

‘Not recently.’

‘Not this recently,’ his partner offered.

‘Last night recently.’

‘You know where I was last night. God, I have the best alibi in Glasgow. I was with these two for a start—’

The two senior officers looked confused.

The fair man frowned: ‘Not last bleeding night. Night before last. Same night you did the other one.’

‘Not me,’ I said.

‘We have two bodies,’ the dark man said reasonably. ‘One’s in a shed – under sacks?’ The older of the local men nodded. ‘And the other one’s, well, he’s under these soft sheets.’ He rubbed a sheet between thumb and fingers like a patter merchant on a stall at the Barrows. ‘He’s dead too.’

‘There must be plenty of people die in the city – every night of the year.’

I didn’t know why I kept talking. Even in my own ears, I sounded like a criminal defending himself. A cold-blooded customer – and bloody insolent.

‘Well, now, that’s a point of view.’ The dark man was enjoying himself. ‘All those slums. No Mean City and that. Razor slashers chopping each other’s sporrans off. Dozens of murders every night, I expect.’

The two older men still looked like officers; they even looked distinguished; it was just that they didn’t look powerful any more.

‘Only thing is you don’t get dozens of them tied up first.’

Tied up? I had an image of Peter Kilpatrick with his legs and wrists bound. And the smear on his face I had wanted to wipe away.

‘Want to say something?’

I shook my head – no. What was there to say?

‘Plenty of time to change your mind,’ the dark man said comfortably. ‘We were talking about coincidences. Two killed – that happens. Both tied up – could be. Tied up with the same cord – second one tied up with cord cut off the piece used on the first one. That’s no fucking coincidence, not any more.’

‘Who was killed?’ I looked at the bed. And then by an involuntary reaction tried to move away from it – but the fair-headed man was in the way. He crowded me against it.

‘He doesn’t know,’ he said.

‘I don’t.’

‘He only works here. He only works it all out. He only plans it. Didn’t you care who got killed?’

The dark man took over from him. He had such a gentle and reasonable manner, I had begun to prefer his partner.

‘Of course, he cared,’ he said. ‘Not much point in killing just anyone. That would be murder. That’s right, isn’t it? You wouldn’t call this murder. Of course not. Idealist. Don’t think I don’t understand. We make a study of it. Plenty of idealists about nowadays. Planting bombs. Blowing up schoolkids. Shooting down old ladies at airports. And this kind of thing,’ he nodded at the turbulent bed, ‘not murder. Assassination. Oh, you’ve got what you wanted. Every paper in the world this morning has what you’ve done in a fat headline. In London and Berlin and Rome – even in Rio de Janeiro, I expect. Wouldn’t surprise me if even the Chinks had it on their telly – how you murdered him. Pardon – telling how you assassinated him. They admire that kind of thing.’ He had talked himself into a controlled fury. ‘We don’t. You’re going to be surprised how much we don’t – especially where he was concerned. Put it this way – if some people, even some of your people up here, could get their hands on you they’d tear you apart piece by piece for what you did to him.’