Greenway gave me five hundred dollars in cash which was unusual but not something for me to tear my hair out over. Then he surprised me by standing up, grabbing his bag and jerking his head at the door. ‘You’ve got a car, haven’t you?’

‘Sure.’

‘I don’t like small rooms very much. Let me show you the place we’re talking about.’

We went down to the lane at the back of the building where I keep my 1984 Falcon on a slab of concrete Primo Tomasetti the tattooist rents to me. Primo was standing in the lane having a smoke. He recently declared his tattoo parlour a No Smoking zone on a trial basis. He looked at the car which has replaced a 1965 model, same colour, fewer miles, less rust.

‘Looks great, Cliff,’ he said. ‘Just like you’d be with a facelift.’

‘Are you thinking of going into that business?’ I asked him. ‘It’s only a sort of sideways move.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The first’d be the toughest. You volunteering?’

Greenway was standing by, not paying any attention. I unlocked the passenger door and opened it for him. He got in slowly and gracefully. Primo stared. ‘Who is he?’ he whispered. ‘A doctor?’

I winked at him. ‘The Pope’s grandson. Keep it under your hat.’

It was the last week in March. Daylight saving was a recent memory and the sun was still high in the late afternoon and a problem as I was driving into it. I asked Greenway to get my sunglasses out of the glove box.