›From the air, Ireland was an opaque stained-glass window of delicate greens and browns, the hedges and walls making strong lines of shadow in the low afternoon sun. Then a glance of the soft feminine shapes of the western mountains, with only a dusting of snow on their northern slopes, and the Boeing 737 slammed down on Shannon's wet runway.

"Are you commercial?" the girl at the hotel desk asked. Maxim just stared, wondering what the answer should be, before asking what she meant.

"Well, we find…" she was suddenly rather embarrassed, "… that the commercial gentlemen don't usually want a bath. A bathroom, by that I mean. We don't have any rooms left with bathrooms."

"Let's say I'm commercial."

Maxim grinned to himself as he unpacked, then deliberately went and wallowed – free – in a deep tub in the communal bathroom down the corridor. The flight had been two hours late since Heathrow still hadn't got itself defrosted properly, and his job in Ireland could only be done in working hours. It had also been a cold fifteen miles from Shannon to Limerick, the only car left for hire at the airport being an Escort with a busted heater.

He had booked nothing in advance, getting the air ticket at the last moment. The name Maxim hadn't gone ahead of him – they hoped.

"Once you're on that plane, you're out of the United Kingdom," George warned him, quite unnecessarily.

"Most of the serious soldiering I've done has been outside the UK."

"If you do any serious soldiering in the Irish Republic, you needn't bother coming home again. You haven't got that pistol with you, I hope and trust but don't really believe?"

"No." All he had was a totally illegal flick-knife in among his shaving gear. He wasn't sure how illegal it was in Ireland, but assumed it must be.

He walked the damp drabness of O'Connell street until he found a telephone box, and rang a London number Agnes had given him. All he said was: "H at hotel number one."

A man's voice said: "Right," and rang off. George would be told that he'd got in at the first hotel on their list.

Then he rang a number up in the Silvermine Mountains, twenty miles north, and made an appointment for nine-thirty the next morning. The man at the other end was very willing but played his part like the first read-through at a church hall dramatic society. Maxim hurried back through the drizzle grinning wryly to himself. The poor put-upon bastard. Being an old chum of George's and owning a retreat in the right part of Ireland could suddenly become a nervous hazard, particularly since they couldn't tell him what it was all about.

Maxim had vaguely expected a run-down castle. What he got was a run-down cottage. It sat in a field ringed with walls that were just lines of dark stones piled together, and at some time it must have burned down. But long ago, because now the remaining roof timbers were almost smothered by some climbing evergreen, making a green thatch above the empty window-frames. In good weather it would be the perfect meeting-place for lovers from a bad historical novel. Now it seemed like a mistake in map-reading.

But there was a nearly new silver-grey BMW saloon parked in the yard behind, and an unseen wing of the cottage had been restored, slate roof, double glazed windows and all. Jonathan St. John Rafford hurried out and snatched open the door of the Escort.

"My God, isn't the weather awful? Get yourself inside." He scampered away again. Maxim picked up his briefcase and followed. The restored rooms were warm, bright, cosy, with books jammed into every space.

Rafford was pouring coffee. "Black? Do you take sugar?" He was a few years older than Maxim but still trying to be twenty-six. He wore very tight faded jeans with his tummy bulging over them, and a rough-knit fisherman's sweater. His face was slightly puffy, with a sharp aristocratic nose and long dark hair that he had to keep sweeping out of his eyes with an elaborate gesture.

He wrote, so George had said, very sensitive biographies of minor but well-born European politicans.

"Aren't you having any?" Maxim asked. There was only one cup poured.

"No, no, I'll be away. There's the phone, and I've put out the directory. You did want the Yellow Pages as well?"

"Thank you. If you ever have to explain why I was here, and we don't think you will, it was to look over this property in case you'd let George and me buy into it, as a shared holiday home."

"Actually," Rafford said thoughtfully, "that might not be a bad idea."

"Oh Lord."

"I'm terribly sorry." He really looked it. "No, what I meant was: I spurn your offer, after due consideration, as being far below the market value. Is that better?"

"Much."

Rafford picked up a worn duffle coat, turned to the door, then turned back. "This is absolutely nothing to do with North and South, is it?"

"It's nothing to do with Ireland at all," Maxim said firmly.

"Oh, that's fine. Help yourself to anything you can find in the kitchen or the drinks and…" he smiled boyishly; "… just look the property over."

Maxim sipped coffee until the BMW had growled away, then sat down at a telephone which wasn't in a call box and didn't go through a hotel switchboard, and started on the first of a long list of numbers.

He began with what were, or might be, Mrs Jackaman's relatives; Brennans were very thick on the ground in south-western Ireland. Maxim was a London estate agent who only wanted to know who was handling the sale of the English house because he might have a client; did they know where he could contact Mrs Jackaman, nйe Mary Brennan? No fish bit on that one, though once he thought he sensed a nibble. He underlined the name.

Then he became a furrier and tried the bigger shops of Limerick, Ennis, Nenagh and Killaloe: did Mrs Jackaman have an account with them? – she'd left Britain after ordering this fur jacket and said she'd send her Irish address when she had one, but… Nothing.

After nearly two hours, he got up and walked around the room, shaking the creases out of himself and rubbing his dialling hand. For the first time in his life he felt some sympathy for journalists who must spend whole days doing this sort of thing, carefully sifting through pan after pan of gold to discover one speck of dirt.

He made another pot of coffee and sat down to try the long shots. They'd wondered about the doctors and lawyers, but decided not – not yet, anyway. Those would be professionally secretive and suspicious; you weren't speaking to some dumb blonde in Accounts.

"You're a Citroen agent, I think?"

"We are that. Can I help you?"

"I hope so. I was talking to a Mrs Mary Jackaman some time ago and she asked me to get her a couple of fog-lamps for her Citroen GS when I was next over in France, so I did that-"

"Why should she ask that? I could have got them for her meself, easy."

"No idea. But she does come to your garage?"

"We've had her car in here, sure."

Crunch. The fish had bitten. Now slowly, Harry, slowly.

"Oh good. I just don't know how to get them to her. She hadn't got a proper address there when I last saw her. Should I drop them off on you? I'll be down that way early next week."

"Surely you can." Maxim held his breath. "She's living in a houseboat on the Lough, up beyond Ballina. But you leave them with me any time, we're a deal easier to find. Did I have your name?"

"John Rhodes, from Bristol. Thanks for your trouble. I'll be seeing you."

Maxim put the phone down very carefully and unclenched his hand from around it. The fingers were white. Funny: he'd never have gripped a weapon that fiercely.