The doorbell insisted on ringing. The fact it kept ringing was all the more suspicious and worrying. Had he been set up? Were the police already there to question him? Or, if not the police, who?

He felt his heart thumping. His mind was racing. What really happened to Mitchell? He didn’t seem to be the suicide type. Perhaps he was pushed under the train? This person ringing the bell…?

For Christ’s sake, get a grip!

It took him a minute or two, but everything was tidied away at last. The bell was still ringing every now and then, but Richard still didn’t want to answer. He wanted to get away from the flat, but there wasn’t a practical exit apart from the front door. He could sneak out the kitchen window onto the emergency exit. He considered that for a moment. What if he just didn’t answer?

The damned bell shrieked at him again. Finally he gave up. He decided it would be better to see who it was. Anyone that persistent would keep trying, and it would better to meet them at the front door rather than clambering down the fire exit. He pressed the intercom. “Who is it?”

“Zima.”

The reply startled Richard. This was not on! No one knew; no one should know!

“Mister Zima? I don’t know you. You have the wrong apartment.”

“No, Mr Slater, I am not Mr Zima. I am Mr Weber. I need to talk to you about Zima.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Please, Mr Slater, I do not wish to intrude. Meet me in five minutes in the caf'e on the corner of Melcome Street and Baker Street.”

Richard felt a wave of relief and gratitude sweep over him. At least the stranger was not trying to get into the flat.

“OK. In five minutes. I think there is some mistake though. I don’t know you.”

“You will remember me again when we meet one day, though we have not met.”

Those words! Those words were quite exact – exactly like the second cipher Richard was supposed to remember. But Richard already knew there was something wrong. The ciphers were supposed to be delivered in order: Identification; Instructions; then possibly Discuss or Suspend, Resume or Abort. He was relieved he did not have to invite the stranger into the apartment, but still it meant he had to go out, leaving all the stuff he had just acquired inside the apartment. What if the person ringing the bell was trying to lure him outside so someone else could search the flat?

The memory stick was still lying on the desk! He snatched it up and dashed around in an almost comical hurry, trying to think of a good hiding place. What about inside the coffee jar? That would have to do. He poked it down into the middle of a half-full jar of instant coffee. The paperwork went into the middle of a pile of other paperwork and then he headed out to the caf'e.

“Klaus Weber.”

“Richard Slater. Pleased to meet you.”

Weber took a sip of his coffee before replying, as though he needed the time to consider his response.

“Well, I’m glad that you say you’re pleased. Though I don’t believe you. In fact, neither of us believes anything about the other. So, how are we going to do this when neither of us are to be trusted?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. But we have some mutual friends. Do you remember Stuart Douglas?”

Richard wished he had learnt how to play poker, or at least how to keep a poker face when required. He had no idea if his face had given away any clues, but he did indeed remember Stuart Douglas.

Back in the day, they had spent many hours arguing about dialectical materialism and stuff like that.

“I know him pretty well. I imagine he’ll be retiring soon,” Weber stated, not bothering to wait for confirmation of whether Richard knew him before continuing. “I expect that, after all this time, you might be wondering if it’s worth the effort? You probably even changed your mind about your belief system…”

“A man may not know his own mind,” Richard replied dryly, but when Weber showed him an annoyed face, he felt obliged to explain. “It’s a quote from The Egyptian by Mika Waltari.”

“I want to keep this meeting brief. Very brief. We have no time for quoting literature. So let us assume that you want to go through with the original plan. What we need to do is establish credentials so that we can trust one another and take it from there. Would you agree?”

“I suppose so. Though I have no idea…” He was cut short by another Weber frown.

“I have a photograph to show you.” Weber reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out a photograph. He showed it to Richard, taking care not to wave it around indiscriminately, so that only Richard could see it, though there seemed to be no reason for such care.

Richard saw a much younger version of himself looking out of the photograph. He must’ve been nineteen, maybe as much as twenty-one in the photo. Standing next to him was Stuart Douglas and, beside Stuart, Eddie. They all looked scruffy, young and defiant. There was a poster with a clenched fist in the background. The poster used to hang on the wall of Stuart’s student flat. Richard remembered the place fondly. It was a sprawling old Victorian house in Glasgow’s Kelvinside. The epitome of radical chic, it was more or less a squat with all sorts of people coming and going without bothering to contribute to the rent. People would simply hand over their keys on a whim to acquaintances. Hardly any of the assortment of hippies, free-loaders and na"ive young people realised that Stuart paid a substantial rent to the owner, or that that money came from a wealthy actress who believed she was making a contribution to the socialist cause. How utterly decadent and pretentious it had all been. But so much better than the dull, organised squalor students went through for no apparent reason these days.