Still, it seemed a nice family place: neat, clean, and orderly, in the good Swiss way. The Swiss had, after all, won the world with their tradition of hotelkeeping and hospitality, and one could scarcely go wrong. I went over to the stern young daughter of the house who presided over the cubbyhole of a reception desk; she acknowledged they had vacant rooms and quoted what sounded a reasonable rate. With Ildiko standing crossly beside me, I signed the book (Mr and Mrs Francis Jay), changed some money, lira to Swiss francs, handed over our passports, and asked for a double room. That was when I found out that the Hotel Zwingli did have one or two disadvantages that the better class of guest over at the Beau Rivage Palace, just round the corner, was very probably spared. The girl handed me two keys. ‘No, a double room,’ I said. ‘With nice big double bed,’ said Ildiko. ‘Ah, non, m’sieu,’ said the girl.

‘Non?’ I asked. The girl held up our two passports, one British and one Hungarian, with two unmatching names, and tapped them. ‘Voilà, m’sieu!’ she said triumphantly. ‘But we’re together,’ I said. ‘Ce n’est pas possible, en Suisse,’ said the girl. Now of course I should at that moment have cancelled the contract, and gone looking for something elsewhere along the Ouchy shore, or maybe just handed over a small tip. But I was young then, the hotel was cheap, cheap enough for even Lavinia not to complain, and Bazlo Criminale was just round the corner. ‘Oh, very well, two single rooms then,’ I said, taking the keys. ‘C’est mieux, m’sieu,’ said the girl. ‘Two single rooms, why?’ asked Ildiko, looking at me mystified. ‘Switzerland is a Calvinist country,’ I said. ‘You mean they don’t have sex here?’ asked Ildiko. ‘I’m sure they do,’ I said, ‘There are plenty of them about. But maybe only on Protestant feast days.’ ‘But you don’t like this, do you?’ asked Ildiko, ‘Why don’t you protest? Maybe she likes a little something.’ ‘It’s no use,’ I said, ‘This is a very strict country. They like you to mind your manners. They don’t even let you do your washing on Sundays.’ ‘I did not come to Lake Geneva to do washing,’ said Ildiko, ‘And I did not come here to sleep alone in a single bed either.

I saw the girl at the desk staring at us with deep disapproval; I pulled Ildiko away. ‘It’s very unfortunate,’ I said, ‘but at least they’ve got room for us.’ ‘You think they make Bazlo Criminale and Miss Blasted Belli have two single rooms there at Beau Rivage Palace?’ asked Ildiko. ‘I can’t afford the Beau Rivage Palace,’ I said, ‘And it’s just for a couple of days.’ ‘A couple of days?’ asked Ildiko, ‘You don’t mind to be without me in your bed for a whole couple of days?’ ‘Of course I mind,’ I said. ‘Are you so tired at making love with me?’ asked Ildiko, rather loudly, ‘Don’t you like my body so much any more?’ ‘I love your body,’ I said, glancing at the girl at the desk, who was tapping her pencil furiously, ‘It’s a terrific body, really. But we can meet from time to time . . .’ ‘Where, in the corridor?’ asked Ildiko, ‘What fun.’ ‘Let’s go and unpack,’ I said, turning to the girl at the desk, ‘Where’s the elevator?’ ‘II n’y en a pas,’ said the girl, ‘Par 1’escalier.’ ‘Oh, no lift also?’ asked Ildiko, ‘Wonderful. How lucky the Swiss have at last invented stairs.’

So our visit to Lausanne got off to a less than perfect start, and things remained that way for some little time afterwards. We climbed the stairs, went along one of those dim, ill-lit corridors where the lights go out just at the time when you need them most, and found Ildiko’s room. ‘Just look at it,’ said Ildiko, throwing her bags down furiously on the bed, ‘You call this a nice chamber? I have seen much better in prison. And been treated nicer by the secret police.’ True, the room could have been improved on: it had one small single bed, a tiny bedside table with a bible on it, and on the wall a large stained lithograph of John Knox. The view through the grimy window was of an enclosed, cemented courtyard; the highlight at its centre was a big skip for the collection of dead bottles. ‘It’s not perfect,’ I said. ‘Wonderful, he admits it,’ said Ildiko. ‘But we can put up with it just for a night or two,’ I said, ‘Just while we do what we came for. I have to find out what Bazlo Criminale is up to in Lausanne.’

‘I will tell you what Criminale Bazlo is up to in Lausanne,’ said Ildiko, ‘He is lying in a very big bed with nice covers with his mistress. He is stroking her body and drinking champagne and counting his royalties and thinking about his bankings and enjoying himself very very nicely. And me, I am here, over where they throw the bottles. And I am with you, who doesn’t want to sleep me any more. Where is your room?’ I glanced at the number on my key. ‘It looks as though it’s a couple of floors higher up,’ I said. ‘Go there then, now,’ said Ildiko, ‘I like to take a shower.’ I’ll go and call the Beau Rivage Palace,’ I said. ‘We will move there?’ asked Ildiko. ‘No, Ildiko, we won’t,’ I said, ‘I want to find out if Bruckner is right and he’s really staying there.’ ‘Of course he is there,’ said Ildiko, ‘That is where he would stay, of course. He is a rich Western celebrity, that is how he lives these days.’ ‘You take your shower, and I’ll check,’ I said, ‘And then why don’t we meet on the terrace for a drink before dinner?’ ‘Maybe,’ said Ildiko, ‘I do not know if I will still be here by dinner.’ ‘Ildiko, look, I’m sorry, but it’s just for . . .’ ‘Out, out, go!’ cried Ildiko, pushing me out into the corridor and slamming the door.

I had scarcely reached the foot of the next staircase when her door was flung open again. ‘There is no shower!’ she shouted after me. ‘Try along the corridor,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t want to try along the corridor!’ she cried. A door along the corridor opened and a maid peered out. ‘M’sieu, madame, taisez-vous!’ she said. I had just reached the next landing when I heard her voice shouting up the stairwell again. ‘Francis! No toilet either! Nowhere to take a pee! Pig! Pig! Pig!’ My own room was no more comfortable, and it had, of course, no telephone. I had to go back down to the lobby again and speak to the disapproving girl at the desk, who handed me some jetons and pointed me to a telephone booth in the corner. Under her stern gaze I called the desk at the Beau Rivage Palace. After a complicated conversation I really found out only one thing. Bruckner was right; a Doctor Bazlo Criminale had taken a suite for a few days and was indeed in residence.

I went back to my room, lay on the lumpy bed, and thought for a while. What was honest, if flexible, Bazlo Criminale doing here? He had fled from Barolo and come to Lausanne. With him, I presumed, was Miss Belli. And this time, as I understood it, his trip could hardly be one of his familiar pieces of absent-minded wandering. He must have broken with his past, thrown up his marriage, begun gathering up his Western royalties, and was heading for a new life. This meant he must imagine that no one knew where he was, and wanted to preserve his sweet sexual secret. I needed to move carefully. On the other hand, I wanted to know more. Far from having too little on Criminale, I now seemed to be acquiring almost too much: not just the stuff for a single TV programme, but a whole dramatic series. In fact Criminale now seemed to me a great porridge of confusing stories, an excess of signs, financial and political and historical and sexual, a bulging bundle of obscurities and secrets. I’d now come to see that his past was strange and tricky, in the Eastern European way; but his life in the present didn’t seem to be any clearer either. Why then was he in Lausanne? Fraud appeared to have little to do with it; cash, comfort, Miss Belli and a whole new life seemed answer enough. And if Lavinia wanted life and loves, she would surely get them. I made some notes in my notebook, then went downstairs to look for Ildiko.

She was already sitting on the tiny glazed terrace that lay outside the hotel, wearing the ‘I ♥ Lausanne’ sweater and drinking coffee. I saw when I sat down beside her that her fine Hungarian temper had most definitely not cooled. Early evening darkness was just beginning to settle on the lake, and though the air was chilly the view was pleasant. The lamps were beginning to sparkle all along the smart promenade, and the lights of Evian twinkled on the further shore, elegantly reflected in the waters of the lake. Skateboarders were skating in the park that lay in front of the steamer pier, and a more exotic nightlife was just beginning to emerge. This was evidently the smart area, the place where the jeunesse dorée of Lausanne chose to gather at this time of day. Bronzed youths and very well-dressed maidens were already out, performing the local version of the Italian corso. Driving round at speed in their Porsches, Audi Quattros and customized Range Rovers, or on their BMW speedbikes, they were calling from car to car at each other and the more attractive samples of the passers-by.