Idi Amin Dada Dies...and Garrigan Lives on in the Leafy Suburbs of Wimbledon...

"From my own point of view, I was also trying to explore, in a literary way, how sensationalism relates to the writing of fiction: at what point, I tried to ask myself, am I myself involved in the glamourisation of Amin's deeds? Where does the chain of responsibility and voyeurism that wraps itself around Garrigan end? With me? With you, the reader?" Giles was on the ball.

Giles also spoke with authority. He had been to see Major Bob in the leafy suburb of Wimbledon and knew what he was talking about. Bob, himself, had spent over 10 years in a Ugandan jail, and also knew what he was talking about. It was a meeting of the minds.

his reaction to The Last King of Scotland?

GF: Well, this worried my mother a lot, who despite having returned to Britain, still reckons that Amin's men are going to come after me! I tell her not to worry. It's not likely: he is living in Saudi on a small pension from the government there, and doesn't have the resources he once had. Apparently he has slimmed down a lot and now has the nickname Dr. Jaffa, because he eats large numbers of oranges each day. It must be true, as the reason is pure Amin: he believes they will repair his ailing sexual potency. I heard this from a Scottish businessman -- it sounds too good to be true, but I swear he was Scottish -- who works in Saudi and visits Amin from time to time. He has told me of the dictator's response: not being able to read, he had a summary made of the book, and on having it read out to him veered between fury and flattery. Although the Saudi government won't let me go there and see him for myself, I feel like I know him well enough to believe that this is how he would react. Ah well, you can't please everybody.

Bob has a habit of covering his eyes or forehead with his hand when he is recalling unpleasant things, as if the memory is too much to bear.

"They brought a man in. He was deputy commissioner of police and his bones were all sticking out and we tried to, um, repair him but they . . ." He makes pushing motions about his shins and forearms, mimicking putting the bones back, then makes the cutting sign across his throat.

He goes into gruelling detail.

"The prisoners, they used to pierce them here, through the Achilles tendon, so they couldn't walk," he says, getting down on the carpet and jumping forward clumsily on his knees.

"Others had to carry these prisoners when they went to be executed. I had a melodeon smuggled into me and before they went to be killed, I would play Onward Christian Soldiers and so on and we would have a church service."

Asked again why he persisted in Uganda, if he was an enemy of Amin, Astles claims: "It was because of my Africans, my staff, I had a lot of people who were relying on me."

He put himself through the fire to stay there, at one point cutting three tribal scars into his cheeks in an attempt to persuade Amin he had been captured by smugglers: "I had to replace them each Sunday, with a hot wire. My wife said, why do we have to go through this horror?"

The key to Astles, why he put up with the horror, is the lure of danger and the satisfaction of a job well done - whatever it is.

"Bob had to have excitement and adventure," Monica has said. Shades of Nicholas. Fun and adventure.

"His mind was always on the political intrigue.

" The risk of being associated with a regime that murdered thousands isn't one that he seems to have considered over much. There is something curiously disengaged about him altogether, as if he can't conceive of a moral dimension to practical activity.

"I loved it," he recalls, "and when my minister asked me to do something, I'd do it . . . And I'd do it all again. Definitely."

Idi Amin Dada and Pol Pot. Starvation and death and disloyalty and distrust.