‘Cold’, she said. ‘Selfish and cold.’

I patted her arm, there were no tears which was good. I went out.

Athol’s pimping shop was in Double Bay on a steep hill. I ran the back wheels of my old Falcon into the kerb and let it sit there in a way which says to the world, ‘this car has a faulty handbrake’; but what can you do? Athol’s decor was dominated by photographs, mirrors and magazines. The pictures were blow-ups of models with impossible cheek bones doing mysterious things amid shadows. The magazines were glossy, and the mirrors are fine if you’re a five foot nine clothes horse with the right angles and planes. When you’re a thin, six foot, thirtyish man with untidy dark hair and Grace Bros, clothes, they’re not so good. A lacquered, Sassooned brunette pressed a buzzer when I told her who I was, and Athol hurried out.

Athol Groom is one of those men in the fifties who plays squash and eats nothing so as to keep his waist down; he likes a drink though, and that slight thickening won’t be denied. He has a glossy moustache, and hair and teeth to match, but he’s not a phoney.

‘Good to see you, Cliff, how’s Cyn?’ I took Athol home once, and after one look at Cyn he tried to persuade her to take up photo modelling. She laughed at him.

‘All right. What’s going on?’

The brunette looked at her appointment book and spoke up crisply. ‘Mr Blake is due any minute, Mr Groom.’

‘Right, right. Come on, Cliff, you’re a bodyguard; come and meet the body.’

We went down a corridor past more photographs and into Groom’s office. A woman was leaning back against the big desk combing her hair. It was worth combing, a great blue-black mane that rippled and flowed under the comb strokes. Its owner had the standard tall, thin, flat body; but with a face to haunt your dreams forever. Her skin was darkish, almost olive; she had jet black eyebrows, dark eyes and a wide, wonderful mouth. Her nose was nothing much, just exactly as straight and thin as it needed to be.