ONE

      Mackintosh’s office was, unexpectedly, in the City. I had difficulty in finding it because it was in that warren of streets between Holborn and Fleet Street which is a maze to one accustomed to the grid-iron pattern of Johannesburg. I found it at last in a dingy building; a well-worn brass plate announcing innocuously that this Dickensian structure held the registered office of Anglo-Scottish Holdings, Ltd.

      I smiled as I touched the polished plate, leaving a smudged fingerprint. It seemed that Mackintosh knew his business; this plate, apparently polished by generations of office boys, was a sign of careful planning that augured well for the future – the professional touch. I’m a professional and I don’t like working with amateurs – they’re unpredictable, careless and too dangerous for my taste. I had wondered about Mackintosh because England is the spiritual home of amateurism, but Mackintosh was a Scot and I suppose that makes a difference.

      There was no lift, of course, so I trudged up four flights of stairs – poor lighting and marmalade-coloured walls badly in need of a repaint – and found the Anglo-Scottish office at the end of a dark corridor. It was all so normal that I wondered if I had the right address but I stepped forward to the desk and said, ‘Rearden – to see Mr Mackintosh.’

      The red-headed girl behind the desk favoured me with a warm smile and put down the tea-cup she was holding. ‘He’s expecting you,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if he’s free.’ She went into the inner office, closing the door carefully behind her. She had good legs.

      I looked at the scratched and battered filing cabinets and wondered what was in them and found I could not possibly guess. Perhaps they were stuffed full of Angles and Scots. There were two eighteenth-century prints on the wall – Windsor Castle and the Thames at Richmond. There was a Victorian steel engraving of Princes Street, Edinburgh. All very Anglic and Scottish. I admired Mackintosh more and more – this was going to be a good careful job; but I did wonder how he’d done it – did he call in an interior decorator or did he have a pal who was a set dresser in a film studio?

      The girl came back. ‘Mr Mackintosh will see you now – you can go right through.’

      I liked her smile so I returned it and walked past her into Mackintosh’s sanctum. He hadn’t changed. I hadn’t expected him to change – not in two months – but sometimes a man looks different on his home ground where he has a sense of security, a sense of knowing what’s what. I was pleased Mackintosh hadn’t changed in that way because it meant he would be sure of himself anywhere and at any time. I like people I can depend on.

      He was a sand-coloured man with light gingery hair and invisible eyebrows and eyelashes which gave his face a naked