She gave me instructions to meet her in the lounge of the Regal hotel and, while I haven’t been shy about going into hotels for the past twenty-odd years, today I was just a bit reluctant. It was close to three pm on a fine day with low pollution levels; my own pollution level was low too, because it was two months and sixteen days since I’d stopped smoking. But now I wanted a cigarette badly. I’d been a private detective for ten years, near enough, and I’d always had a cigarette before I met a client, several while I talked and listened, and a few more afterwards while I thought. It was a hard pattern to break.

The Regal dominates a stretch of the Parade at Bondi; it’s white, of course, with a few turrets, one of which supports a flagpole and flag. The palm trees on either side of the entrance would go better in Singapore, but they’re doing their best. I was early as always and I wandered down to the beach to kill the time. The suntanned people outnumbered the pallid, although it was only October. You can sunbathe all the year round in Sydney if you pick your spots and days and have nothing better to do.

I stood on the steps of the pavilion looking out at the heavy surf and the few people braving it with their boards and bodies. They looked frail, as if the sea was playing with them rather than the other way around. Any minute, it seemed, the water could rise up and obliterate them. But the sun was shining and the sand glowed; some of the pale people were turning pink and it was no time for glum thoughts. I took two lungfuls of the ozone and still wanted a cigarette.

The lounge of the Regal was dark and quiet, as lounges should be, and I had to peer about before I located the woman at a table in the corner. As I went across I thought that this was a good place to arrange a meeting-she would have a chance to see her man irresolute before he saw her. My client would have seen a tall, thin man, dark and not saved from looking forty by the soft light. She sat straight and square-shouldered in her chair and held out her hand. Businesslike.