‘Why don’t we leave it as it was, Clarissa?’

‘How was that?’

‘A novelty thing – the dustman and the duchess.’

‘Is that how you thought it?’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘No,’ she said, all the brittleness of the evening gone. ‘I’m surprised you did.’

There was a sound from the corridor and Willoughby reappeared, the refilled brandy decanter in his hand. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

He poured large measures into three balloons and handed them round.

‘Here’s to a successful trip,’ he said.

‘Can’t imagine it being anything else, can you?’ said Charlie.

‘I hope not,’ said the underwriter.

It had been a mistake to accept the invitation, Charlie decided, walking back towards Sloane Square. He still fancied her rotten and she knew it. He wouldn’t see her again.

Clever though it had been, the British entrapment had a flaw and Kalenin seized it. Albania and Yugoslavia were not included in the list of countries to which the damning advisory message had been sent. Which left six. To the foreign ministries and the intelligence services in Warsaw, East Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia he sent demands for any inquiry which had come back from any embassy, once it had been relayed. Kalenin was using the English plan in reverse. It shouldn’t take long; it was very clever, after all.

6

Between his office and that of his deputy there was a room formerly occupied by someone with the title of Forward Planning Executive, which Sir Alistair Wilson properly regarded as a piece of bureaucratic nonsense and abandoned after his appointment. It was here that he and Harkness created their incident room, bringing in document benches, filing cabinets for analysis folders, and three progress boards on easels to chart the direction of the inquiry. The conference was scheduled for ten and Harkness entered as the clock was striking, dossiers parcelled on his outstretched arms. He dumped them on the prepared table and looked without expression towards the intelligence chief.