" Y o u poor old son of a bitch, Harry."

A hundred yards down on the other side of the road a knot of men were gathered. The girl with the flowers stopped, looked across at the men, then turned into a front drive and was gone from sight.

It would have been a pretty road in spring, with the blossom on the trees that lined it. The leaves were down now. He knew very little of what had happened, had been out of touch since the first report had reached the Embassy in Rome and he had started running. They always sent a Fed when an American citizen was killed, and the Rome office covered Athens.

The men grouped together ahead of him were hunched against the drizzle. Erlich recognised from his balding head Harry's Station Chief. If that was where Harry had died, there should have been a big area quarantined off with tape. There shouldn't have been a cattle herd of feet trampling over the grass.

Erlich walked forward. He reached the group.

The killing had been early in the morning. The Station Chief would have come from home because he wore no tie and he was draped in an old windbreaker, probably the first coat to hand on the pegs by his front door. Killings never came convenient. The Station Chief detached himself from the group. He took Erlich's hand, as if he were a priest, offering his condolences. The Station Chief would have known that Harry Lawrence and Bill Erlich were close, that their friendship crossed the divide of Agency man and Fed.

The Station Chief pointed between the trousered legs and the shoes of the Greek police and security officials. There was blood on the grass, thin darkened streaks. The pointing finger moved on, away from the grass and over towards the pavement.

On the pavement were two patches of blood.

The Station Chief said, "Harry had a contact with him – they were both taken out… Good to have you here, Bill."