‘I’ll remind Clarissa about that dinner invitation, too,’ said the underwriter.

‘Fine,’ replied Charlie. He wondered how he would enjoy a concentrated period in the woman’s company.

‘Tomorrow then?’ pressed Willoughby, as if he doubted Charlie’s agreement.

‘Eleven,’ said Charlie. ‘But it’s only to talk. I don’t want to become involved.’

‘I understand,’ said Willoughby.

He didn’t, Charlie decided. He left the party as early as he considered polite. Clarissa Willoughby was at her station by the lift, unconscious of everything except the hoped-for arrival of guests she considered important. From her reaction to his farewell, Charlie guessed she had forgotten him already.

There were taxis going to and from Chelsea and Victoria, but Charlie walked, despite his pinching shoes, more confident of that way identifying any surveillance.

It took him over an hour to reach his flat in Vauxhall. He had searched a year to find it, a high-rise block that loomed permanently black beside the Thames because it was on the windward side of Battersea Power Station and got all the smuts, regardless of what everyone expected from the Clean Air Act. It was the sort of building frequently criticised as socially wrong at inquests upon the people who threw themselves from the top, depressed by anonymity and loneliness. It was precisely because of its anonymity and the fact that nobody was interested in him that Charlie had taken the flat. It was a series of boxes within boxes, a sitting room with a dining annexe, just one bedroom, a bathroom and a toilet. The window to the fire escape was always ajar, winter or summer, for a quick exit.

It was only when the jacket that he pitched towards the chair missed and landed on the floor that Charlie remembered the raffle ticket and the telephone number. He retrieved it, stood gazing at it for a few moments and then shrugged. Why not?