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senior staff prefer one shift we can change the rota and make it permanent.’
    Again there was the murmur of the woman’s voice, and the sound of running water, splashing as if someone was washing their hands.
    The man said, ‘How right you are; like the bloody secret service if you ask me. Was my grandmother born in the United Kingdom. Bloody sauce! I put “yes” to everything.’
    When I switched off the light the conversation suddenly stopped. I waited in the darkness, not moving. The light from the tiny office was still on. If this door was opened they would be certain to see me. There was the sound of a towel machine and then of a match striking. Then the conversation continued, but more distantly. I tiptoed across the room very very slowly. I closed the second door and looked at the alterations to the wardrobe while retreating through it. This false door behind the wardrobe puzzled me even more than the curious little operating theatre. If a man was to construct a secret chamber with all the complications of securing the lease to his next door apartment, if he secretly removed large sections of brickwork, if he constructed a sliding door and fitted it into the back of a built-in wardrobe, would such a man not go all the way, and make it extremely difficult to detect? This doorway was something that even the rawest recruit to the Customs service would find in a perfunctory look round. It made no sense.
    The phone rang. I picked it up. ‘Your cab is outside now, sir.’
    There are not many taxi services that say ‘sir’ nowadays. That should have aroused my suspicions, but I was tired.
    I went downstairs. On the first-floor landing outside the caretaker’s flat there were two men.
    â€˜Pardon me, sir,’ said one of the men. I thought at first they were waiting for the caretaker, but as I tried to pass one of them stood in the way. The other spoke again. ‘There have been a lot of break-ins here lately, sir.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜We’re from the security company who look after this block.’ It was the taller of the two men who’d spoken. He was wearing a short suede overcoat with a sheepskin lining. The sort of coat a man needed if he spent a lot of time in doorways. ‘Are you a tenant here, sir?’ he said.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    The taller man buttoned the collar of his coat. It seemed like an excuse to keep his hands near my throat. ‘Would you mind producing some identification, sir?’
    I counted ten, but before I was past five the shorter of the men had pressed the caretaker’s buzzer. ‘What is it now?’
    â€˜This one of your tenants?’ said the tall man.
    â€˜I’m from number eighteen,’ I prompted.
    â€˜Never seen him before,’ said the man.
    â€˜You’re not the caretaker,’ I said. ‘Charlie Short is the caretaker.’
    â€˜Charlie Short used to come over here now and again to give me a break for a couple of hours …’
    â€˜Don’t give me that,’ I said. ‘Charlie is the caretaker. I’ve never seen you before.’
    â€˜A bloody con man,’ said the man from the caretaker’s flat.
    â€˜I’ve lived here for five years,’ I protested.
    â€˜Get on,’ said the man. ‘Never seen him before.’ He smiled as if amused at my gall. ‘The gentleman in number eighteen has lived here for five years but he’s much older than this bloke – bigger, taller – this one would pass for him in a crowd, but not in this light.’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re up to …’ I said. ‘I can prove …’ Unreasonably my anger centred on the man who said he was the caretaker. One of the security men took my arm. ‘Now then, sir, we don’t want any rough stuff, do we?’
    â€˜I’m going back to “War and Peace”,’ said the man. He closed the door forcefully enough to