'Dusk?' said Dirk in a tone that suggested he'd just been approached by an Iranian goat herder and offered five Rial to perform an immoral act. 'Dusk?'

'It's the bit in the day between the light bit and the dark bit,' remarked Pawser taking back the note he'd just given to Dirk. 'I'm sure you've seen it.'

'I have indeed Pawser. But who uses a term like that nowadays? It's the sort of thing my granny used to say.'

'I think you're missing the point, Dirk,' Pawser studied the note again. 'I've just found it in my pocket and I've no idea who it's from, or how it got there.'

They sat in silence digesting this monumental mystery. Pawser checked the piece of paper while Dirk stirred an insipid cup of coffee. They had taken up residence at the back of Ari the Greeks café. As a temporary office it worked well. It was warm and with a table and three chairs and with few visitors its close proximity to Thames House made it an ideal bolt hole.

'Perhaps your coat was mistaken by Nobby for one of Penny's hacking jackets and he's looking forward to a chubby liaison with her at the baths.'

'Don't be disgusting, Dirk.' Secretly Pawser envisaged Nobby covered in goose fat, limbering up for this assignation, with his fat, well hung horse standing by, egging him on, ready to hold his towel when he whipped it off to reveal the pie fattened treasures beneath to Penny. It didn't bear thinking about.

Pawser studied the paper in his hand. Written in long elegant gothic writing was the missive. 'Meet me at the Roman Baths, today. At dusk.'

'Hey, you don't think it's from Claudette the receptionist do you? I had to stand her up but maybe were back on.' He cast his gaze optimistically at Dirk.

'Claude's first dates are usually in The Ship and then second dates back to his place for a little bit of hanky spanky.'

'Claudes?'

'I can see no one's let you into the darker elements of Claude's Machiavellian deception.'

'I fear you are about to launch that missive in my direction, I'm under no apprehension that I'm likely to find it distinctly unpalatable.'

'Well,' Dirk eyed him gingerly. 'Let's just say Claude is working his way to becoming Claudette, he's around Claudet at the moment.'

'Oh god.'

'After he's worked you over with two quarts of Cornish vanilla ice cream and you're lying there watching him limbering up his tongue for the exotic pleasures to come, he'll tap you up for some substantial funds to help him pay for that final sex change op.'

'Thanks for spoiling that one for me, Dirk. After Olga I should have learnt my lesson I suppose.' Pawser stopped stirring his coffee and looked sideways at Dirk. 'You seem to know all about this in rather intimate detail.'

'Never mind that, Pawser. Should you wish to wander along that path, I'm sure he wouldn't take it too far. You'd be more of a father figure to him, you know, a shoulder to cry on and to help flick through those hairdressing and make up catalogues.' Dirk tapped the note. 'Anyway, enough of who might lick what off whom, we have a less gastronomically attractive problem to solve. Look at the writing, those long elegant curves, the use of a fountain pen. It looks like it's been drafted by a three hundred year old spinster with a propensity for the dramatic.'

'You mean, Ferker-Rose?' speculated Pawser.' Hardly the Roman Baths type though? She's more the tearooms at Bath type, I would think. Have you ever been to the Roman Baths at Clapham, Dirk? It's always looked rather dubious to me. I'm not going alone.'

'I'm just fine here, thanks Pawser.' Dirk sat back and sipped his acrid tasting coffee.

'All right, all right. You can show me your upgrade while we're in there.'

The Roman Baths were ten minutes by tube from the cafe. They left at about twenty five to dusk by Pawser's reckoning, just as Ari was shutting up shop and meandered slowly off through the backstreets.

The front of the Baths were just as alluring as Pawser remembered. Four large mock marbled columns straddled the frontage supporting a long stained plaster lintel sporting a chorus of cavorting, soot covered nymphs and cherubs.

They pushed through the smoked glass door and up a dimly lit corridor past a couple of porticos, one of which contained a stone head of Diana to which a moustache had been hurriedly pencilled in on its upper lip. Pawser studied her for a moment, she had a passing resemblance to Nancy Lovegood. Despite the oppressive heat, he shivered. The omens were not good.

At the counter leant a balding, barrel chested individual with the biggest beard Pawser had seen since he'd last encountered Haggards monstrosity on the steps of Admiralty.

'Buon pomeriggio, my friends,' the figure boomed, splaying his fleshy arms and beckoning them forward like a Persian circus master. 'Welcome to the spectacular sights of one of the greatest civilizations of all time.'

'Do you have a coffee area?' Asked Pawser pensively.

'We've got a little bar round the back, mate but it's on hire for a toga party tonight.' Their host whispered furtively to them, his beard floating over the counter like a magical Persian rug. 'Anyway, my little Roman friends, you must be tired after your long travels along the Apian Way. Why not rest yourselves in one of our themed rooms?'

'I'd rather not,' replied Pawser somewhat dismissively. 'I suspect it involves having liberal qualities of tepid yogurt rubbed into your flesh by an overweight Turkish wrestler, wearing nothing but a thong and carrying some unfulfilled desires of the slippery kind.'

'Your host would prefer you did. ' The Persian terror leaned menacingly forward. 'He's hired the Finnish steam lodge, it's all paid for.' He slipped two sets of stained bath towels on the counter and patted them as if they might slip away if not paid constant attention. 'Live a little, my friend.'

'If living a little means being chased around room by one of your guests bearing a limp birch branch and an alluring come hither look, then I think I'll be giving it a miss. What did our host look like? '

'Hmm,' the Persian stroked his bushy beard and for a moment Pawser though he was going to whip out his members book and check the details. 'Strange that you should ask. He were an odd one, that one. Tall, thin, very pale. Long black leather coat, sort of creepy.'

Dirk yelped, 'Shit, Spring-heeled Jack. Let's leg it!'

'Not so fast, fella's. He said he would be most disturbed if you did not show. Most disturbed. Take your towels, get changed and get in there. Third door on the left, just past Hadrian's column.'

Pawser shrugged his shoulders and picked up the towels. Each had a little Harrods monograph embroidered in its corner. He reached over and tugged at the proprietor's bushy outgrowth. 'Well, badgers beards, its Ari the Greek.'

'Izzeee not eiisy these days, Mr Beengham, running a beeeness.' Ari had lifted his beard and it now sat pointing upward on the top of his head, giving the impression they were talking to an eight foot Persian gnome. 'I av the cafe in dee day and the baths at night, you know how it is, Mr Beengham. Time's eez ard.'

'I do indeed Ari, but why the disguise.'

'Oh you know, Mr Beengham the Greeks and the Italians,' Ari punched his fist into his hand. 'Ear I'm Alberto from Poleetio, in the Cafe, I'm Ari the Greek. That way everyone ezz appy. Comprehendi?'

'I do, I do. Well, where's the Finnish steam room again? I can't wait to explore the exotic delights of your establishment.'

'Ah my friends! All is good, eh?' Ari pulled down his beard and slapped the desk, 'Your spirit would make Maximus proud!'

Pawser looked up at this unexpected reference. Ari looked at him blankly, pulled a crooked smile and waved them on.

The changing room contained a set of rusted lockers with a couple of doors missing. On one of the hooks hung an unclaimed pair of yellowing underpants. They changed and slipped back into the gloomy corridor. A couple of middle aged ladies, their towels wrapped tightly around their expansive tops, slipped by giggling. An elderly gentleman, rolled past winking at Dirk and Pawser. As they went by Pawser saw he had each hand planted firmly on each of the substantial bottoms that proceeded him.

'Seedy.' Pawser smiled weakly after them.

'Welcome to my world, Pawser.' grinned Dirk.

The Finnish lodge came up to Pawser's expectations, it consisted of a room with a mock wooden frontage and a few birch twigs in front. They waded through a light scattering of the artificial snow and squeezed through the little cabin door.

Through the clouds of steam Pawser looked distastefully at the single wooden seat. 'I hope you're not expecting to go au naturel, Dirk?'

'Not unless you've got something under that towel that you're desperate to show me. No, I'm not.'

'Oh I forgot, you've got something to show me haven't you?'

'Another time, Pawser.' Dirk sat on the bench and ladled some water over the stones giving rise to an eruption of an impenetrable plume of steam clouds which quickly filled the room.

Somewhat relieved at having forgone the need to view his associates upgrade in the flesh, Pawser held his towel tightly round his waist and settled himself on the wooden seat next to Dirk. Dirk scooped some more water to the stones. More steam billowed out into the tiny space.

'You think that nerk Springer will be here soon? Do you think it's true what they say? He got his nickname from popping up where you least expect him to.' Pawser turned to Dirk to be faced with the leering grin and insipid face of Spring-heeled Jack. Dirk's head appeared through the dense steam vapour behind Springer, nodding vigorously.

Disconcertingly, Jack Springer had somehow managed to squeeze himself, unseen between Pawser and Dirk. Pawser heard himself omit a little nervous laugh at the sudden appearance of this ghostly apparition.

'Right fuckerheads,' sneered Springer, shifting up the bench closer to Pawser. 'The big kahuna has just graced your pitiful little lives and he wants to see the cheese. I expected the three musketeers, where's that maniac Killerman?'

'He's on another job.'Pawser wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried in vain to get his voice to lower two octaves.

'So which one of you is the boss? We've not met, you'll be Bingham and Maine I understand. Who's the head fucker between you two fuckerheads?' Springer's ghostly face was crossed with a livid scar that ran from right ear to the top of his mouth, which gave his top lip a permanent upturned pout.

'Well, I us see it as more of a team,' ventured Pawser, inching up the bench.

'So do I. Boss,' chimed Dirks voice through the vapid mist.

'That's better,' snapped Springer. 'Do you think I've come I've come down this sausage fest just to watch you two fiddling with your ferrets.'

Pawser moved an inch further up until he was hanging precariously off the edge of the seat. 'I'm Bingham.' He said feeling a bit like Spartacus just before the crucifixion.

'You dick jiggler.' Jack stood up and shrugged off his leather overcoat. Underneath lay a white naked body so thin and pale that Pawser found it difficult to pick out through the steam despite the small size of the room. Jack lent over to pick up the water ladle displaying a perfectly white pair of buttocks. On one, in large gothic letters was tattooed the word, 'KISS,' on the other, 'IT'.

Pawser had heard that Spring-heeled Jack was Head Mason of the local Lodge - one favoured by the rank and file of the Officers at the Yards Special Branch. Rumours abounded over the nature of its bacchanal initiation ceremonies. Based on the evidence currently presenting itself to him he surmised him they were mostly conducted on the knees.

Jack returned to his seat and now held and small metal box in his hand from which he extracted an odd looking metal device. 'I got this from an Italian pig farmer while I was on a tour of Tuscany a few years back. What do you think?'

Pawser sat back and swallowed hard. If this was going to get nasty perhaps he should have asked Killerman along.

'Pay attention, monkey-nuts,' Jack slipped on his wire rimmed glasses and lent close to Pawser, his white cataract blown wide through the lens. 'I'm looking for the return of the holdalls and a set of £50 note printing plates and unless you come up with them you'll be wandering around London with a slight limp carrying a small paper bag with the words, My goolies, on it. Do you get my drift?' To impress his point he spun the blades on his contraption and pouted gleefully at Pawser.

'I do, I do. But there were no plates, I'm sure of that,' begged Pawser.

'Well, you'd better find them hadn't you?' Springer shook the device with a clinking of metal on metal, pointed to a little trap it it's base and mouthed silently to Pawser. 'Your goolies go in here.'

'How am I going to get them?' Pawser snapped his knees together.

You've got a team, fuckerhead, get them onto it. The plates must exist. We tried to beat, I mean interview Freddy, but he seems reluctant to disclose their whereabouts or assist us with our inquiries. You don't have any such concerns do you? Put some more water on those stones, Maine, my bones are chilled to the core.'

'No, message received and understood.' It appeared the O'Reilly brothers' work with a blow torch was much more concerning to Freddy than Springer's evil looking pig worrying contraption. Now appeared the opportune time to put the frighteners on Springer. 'You know the O'Reilly brothers are after you?'

'Oh beezjezus, the Irish are on to me are they -do I look scared?'

'Well, no.'

'Did you come down to this Finnish freak hole so scare me with stories about the O'Reillys and then to make it better we can all have a gang shower together, whip out our floppy birch branches and whip each other till you burst into girly tears and we all go off to roll together naked in the snow?'

'No, I...I...' stuttered Pawser looking abjectly at Dirk.

'Yer mums face, yer dick diggler.' Spring-heeled Jack reached out and grabbed Pawser's head and hissed. 'I want those plates. And I want those holdalls.'

Christ this is worse than dealing with the Irish mafia. Pawser edged a little further out. His towel had dropped away from around his waist and he could feel the heat of the white hot stones frying his left buttock. There didn't appear anywhere to go. 'Don't worry Springer, we're onto it. Holdalls and plates, we'll get hold of them for you.'

'Good, good,' Pawser felt Jack's clammy hand rest on his knee. 'Next Friday then. Contact me and let me know where to pick them up. If you don't manage to get them, be good chaps and each bring along a paper bag will you. My guys can be a little forgetful when they get excited. Well, must be off.' Spring-heeled Jack dropped his contraption into the box with a clang, flipped the box shut, pulled on his overcoat, slipped his glasses back into his pocket and dissipated into the mist.

After a few moments Dirk said. 'He seemed like a pleasant chap. Has he gone?'

'You can forget the niceties, Dirk,' Pawser waved away the steam. 'He's gone and he's taken his extensive collection of profanities with him.'

'At least he's left you with your testicles.'

'That's probably because I haven't got my paper bag with me, those Masons are sticklers for ritual you know. Let's get out of here.'