The voice was muffled through the wool. 'Is that you?'

'It is me.'

'Wanted to hear your voice, know it was you.'

He knew the voice. 'What's a piece of shit like you doing here?' and 'You look after that lady… Watch out for her.' He said curtly, 'I know your voice and we do not need, for whatever your purpose, this crap in the middle of the night.'

'Fighting talk from a big brave boy. Understand me, I am not here, I was never here. Ever get the idea that I was here and shout about it, and it'll be your word against mine – and your medical history against the busload of people who will stand up and swear on the Bible, good and firm, that I was elsewhere. Forget it. Those are the rules. I am not here and you never met me here. You got hold of the rules?'

'If you say so.'

'I say it. I said that I'd find out about you-'

'You did.'

'Don't interrupt me, doesn't make me happy.' A pencil torch flashed on in the car, and the beam shone down on a file of papers. 'You are Malachy Walter Kitchen?'

'I am.'

'Son of Walter and Araminta Kitchen, born 1973?'

'Yes.'

'On leaving school, a year's teaching in Krakow, Poland?'

'I cannot see that that is relevant to anything.'

'Everything of you, to me, is relevant.' The papers on the lap were turned. 'You joined the army. Your father was a senior officer, now retired. You were recruited into the ranks. Basic Training, then Germany, Logistics Corps. I suppose it was a gesture

– a poor one, and it did not last. Right?'