‘Fine,’ he said. He’d just have to be careful and he’d always been that, until recently.

Willoughby put his hands flat against the desk top, in a tiny slapping motion. ‘I’ve just had an idea,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Instead of checking through the files here, why not come to the flat tonight and look at them there? Then we can have dinner.’

The inclination to refuse was as always almost automatic. Then Charlie thought of warmed-up shepherd’s pie, cardboard sandwiches and another empty evening in an anonymous pub.

‘Sure Clarissa won’t be inconvenienced by the short notice?’ he said.

‘Positive.’

As he passed through the outer office to the reluctant stop and start lift, Charlie was vaguely aware of a man in a grey-striped suit. He was reading a copy of the Sun.

Since the insistent instructions from Moscow, there was no longer any casualness about the observation; they’d even ignored the ABC cafe close to Willoughby’s office, remaining instead in an alcove on the opposite side of the street.

The man who preferred night to day-time shifts, because there was more opportunity for accidental groping, spotted Charlie first.

‘There!’ he said.

The woman, shapeless in sweater, jeans and tennis shoes, let the man move out ahead of her, so there wouldn’t be any body contact; if he attempted to maul her like he had all the others, she’d determined to kick him so hard in the crotch he’d wear his balls for a necklace.