2: Beguine
Sunday
NIELECKI, who lived in the second-floor back room at King's Cross, heard the nearby church clock strike seven. He'd heard it strike most of the hours of the night. He wondered why it was that he never went to sleep like other people; why it was that so many hours were spent in a pointless reiteration of what might or might not have happened if something or other had been different.
The sharp knock at the door did not surprise him. Nothing surprised Nielecki. He said: "Come in..." put out his hand and switched on the unshaded light globe that hung over his bed.
His landlady— an unprepossessing female with tatty grey hair, a scant bosom and a vacant look, stood in the doorway. Behind her, disinterested and large, loomed the figure of the Special Branch man.
She said ov
