“Thanks, son. Come in, Cliff.”

My escort had snapped back into a position resembling attention. I said, “At ease,” and went into the room. The door was closed quietly behind me.

“Take a seat, Cliff,” Frank said. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you looking like that?”

“I’ve been a prick to people twice in the last twenty minutes,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I sat in one of the two well-padded chairs and looked around the room. Frank’s office in the old College Street police building had looked some-thing like a World War I trench and smelled like a snooker hall. This was all beige carpet, off-white walls and tinted glass. The old fixed squads in the police force- homicide, vice, fraud and so on-had been broken up in favour of units that drew on personnel as required and pursued cases as directed by policy-makers who weren’t always policemen. Unlike the old top cops, who had diplomas from rugby league clubs and testimonials from priests and master masons, these guys had LLBs and criminology degrees and used terms like “targeting” and “social worth”. Frank’s job was to liaise between the thinkers and the doers, so he got carpet and tinted glass. He liked the new honesty but missed the old sweat and dirt.

“Can’t afford a conscience in your game, Cliff,” Frank said. “Maybe you can do a few good deeds and get even. Meantime, I hate to push you out of the confessional, but…” He gestured at his thick stratifications of paperwork.

“I thought we might go out for a beer.”

“No chance. I’ve got a meeting in fifteen minutes.”

Frank looked greyer of hair and skin than he used to, but maybe it was the tinted glass. Then again, we hadn’t played tennis in months, or sat in a beer garden, so I suspected lack of sun was the cause. His nose was dipping towards his papers. Not the time to encourage him to take more exercise. I put my two requests to him, and he had the phone off the hook before I finished talking. He read while he listened, grunted and made notes through the two calls. He put the phone down and looked at his watch. I can take a hint; I stood and moved towards the door.