Angela Ruggerio posted it. The letter was intercepted, copied, resealed and went back into the postal service. In Rome I was shown the copy. The letter was tracked from Palermo to Milan, international sorting, Milan to London, London down here. We took that trouble to ensure the timing of my journey, so that I should get here after you received the letter, before you responded. This is my idea, Miss Parsons, I have initiated this. I want you to go to Palermo and take up that offer.'

She laughed in his face. He didn't think the laugh was affectation.

'Ridiculous…'

'Go back to Palermo and work for Giuseppe and Angela Ruggerio.'

'I've a job, I'm in full-time work. Before, that was just a fill-in between school and college. It's just, well, it's idiotic. It's a joke.'

'1 want you to accept the invitation and travel to Palermo.'

Axel lit a second cigarette. The wind was on his face and cutting into the thin material of his windcheater. She was small now, huddled inside the shape of her coat and her arms were clamped across her chest as if to hold in the warmth.

'What do they call you, people who know you?'

' I get called Charley.'

'Don't think, Charley, that I would have bothered to haul myself over here if this were not an important investigation, don't think I take kindly to wasted time. We get opportunities, maybe they come convenient, maybe they don't. Maybe we can handle the opportunities ourselves, maybe we need to pull in help from outside. We want you in the home of Giuseppe and Angela Ruggerio.'

The bitterness hissed in her voice, and the contempt. 'As a spy?'

'The opportunity we have, through you, is one of access.'

'They treated me as one of their family.'

'Giuseppe Ruggerio is a careful, clever bastard. You should take up that offer and work for Giuseppe and Angela Ruggerio/