After I left the restaurant I ducked into a doorway and kept an eye on the exit. From long experience I’ve found it useful to learn who leaves with who after a meeting, or whether all parties go their separate ways. Di Maggio emerged first and caught a taxi almost immediately. Probably wise, he’d had his share of the drinks. Darcy waddled out next and from the direction he took I guessed he was making his way towards the nearest parking station. Maybe he’d eaten enough to blot up the alcohol. Charlie Underwood and Colin Hart came out together, deep in conversation. Charlie had lucked onto a parking space close to the restaurant and they stood talking beside his car, a Commodore Statesman with all the trimmings, before getting in and driving off. That was interesting in itself, but what was even more interesting was that as they left I heard an engine start up. I kept out of sight and watched a dark blue Mazda pull away and follow the Commodore at a discreet distance as it made its first turn.

Walking, I’ve found, helps me to think, so I decided to walk home. It was a fine night. I walked down Goulburn Street, crossed the Darling Harbour walkway and made my way up through Ultimo towards Glebe. I couldn’t help remembering how it all used to be, with the sprawling goods yards and the factories and the early opening pubs. In many ways it’s better; I’m glad the ABC has its new building and I like the Powerhouse Museum. The fish market is fun and I’m told Glebe High School does some cutting edge stuff. I miss some of the scruffiness and am trying to keep it going in my own way with my ungentrified terrace house down near the water. ‘You’re on a nostalgic and totally unproductive, negative ego trip,’ my last girlfriend, Tess Hewitt, had said. She was probably right but I didn’t care.

Women I’d known and the past I’d lived through filled my mind. I realised, as I approached my street, that I hadn’t done any productive thinking about the Sentinel matter and Scott di Maggio’s dubious proposition. Worse than that I realised, as I turned the corner and a car cruised off in low gear, that I’d been tracked on foot and by car all the way home.