‘You brought particular credit to this department after the joint American investigation…’ There was a burst of coughing. ‘After which I gave you what amounted to an undertaking, about your future.’

Here it comes, thought Danilov. ‘I appreciate the confidence you’ve always shown in me.’

Lapinsk looked down at his desk. ‘Which has been justified by something rare here. But which frightens people. Honesty.’

Danilov was bewildered, ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You are not to succeed me,’ declared Lapinsk, hurrying the coughing words. ‘The appointment goes to Metkin.’

‘What!’ Anatoli Nikolaevich Metkin was a colonel too, but lacked Danilov’s seniority. And he headed the list of men to be warned in the clean-up Danilov had intended in the Bureau. A clean-up, he realised at once, that now wouldn’t be happening.

‘I’ve failed, in my promise to you: like I’ve failed properly to run this Bureau,’ blurted Lapinsk, in sudden admission, ‘I allowed certain practices, understandings, to go on. It’s always been the way: policemen have to mix with criminals, to solve crime. I never intended it to become what it has, virtually a criminal enterprise. That’s why I wanted you to take over: to put things back as they should be. I thought I had the power, even though I was retiring…’ The old man gulped to a halt, near to breaking down. ‘… But it isn’t just the Bureau. People here are protected higher up, within the Interior Ministry. And they’re protected by others for whom they do favours in other ministries. Even by the gangs themselves. It’s like a club, everyone looking after each other. I was blocked, in every way I tried to put you forward… In the end they’ve mocked me, mocked you… I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.’

Danilov tried to analyse what he was being told, examine it coherently. He’d been out-manoeuvred in a coup he hadn’t suspected by those who’d sneered and laughed but known what he would do if he gained control. There’d be a lot more sneering and laughing now. ‘How are we being mocked?’