There were two policemen on my left, one in uniform, one not. They were both sweating, because the room was hot. The doctor stood on the right, fiddling with a tube which ran from a bottle into my elbow. Various other tubes sprouted disgustingly from my abdomen, partly covered by a light sheet. Drip and drainage, I thought sardonically. How absolutely charming.

Radnor was watching me from the foot of the bed, taking no part in the argument still in progress between medicine and the law. I wouldn’t have thought I rated the boss himself attendant at the bedside, but then I suppose it wasn’t every day that one of his employees got himself into such a spectacular mess.

He said, ‘He’s conscious again, and his eyes aren’t so hazy. We might get some sense out of him this time.’ He looked at his watch.

The doctor bent over me, felt my pulse, and nodded. ‘Five minutes, then. Not a second more.’

The plain clothes policeman beat Radnor to it by a fraction of a second. ‘Can you tell us who shot you?’

I still found it surprisingly difficult to speak, but not as impossible as it had been when they asked me the same question that morning. Then, I had been too far gone. Now, I was apparently on the way back. Even so, the policeman had plenty of time to repeat his question, and to wait some more, before I managed an answer.

‘Andrews.’

It meant nothing to the policeman, but Radnor looked astonished and also disappointed.

‘Thomas Andrews?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

Radnor explained to the police. ‘I told you that Halley here and another of my operatives set some sort of a trap intending to clear up an intimidation case we are investigating. I understand they were hoping for a big fish, but it seems now they caught a tiddler. Andrews is small stuff, a weak sort of youth used for running errands. I would never have thought he would carry a gun, much less that he would use it.’