'He's the lay janitor,' a voice came from the shadows of the chapel. 'We shan't be disturbed.'

Croder, by his voice. By his voice and the way he was standing, still and thin as a heron, the steel claw at his left wrist outlined against the dark of his astrakhan coat.

Croder, Chief of Signals.

Hence the motorcade and the formality and Legge's touch of pride when he'd looked at his watch and said, 'Rendezvous time was for 18:00. Couple of minutes to go…' The Chief of Signals is a punctual man. He is also brilliant, ruthless, and without mercy when the choice is to abandon a mission or the life of its shadow executive in the field, showing compassion only when the cost is nothing. He saved my life, once, and that had been the price.

But I was glad to see him. It always stimulates me to find myself in the presence of excellence – let's forget, in this case, the other things.

'Shall we sit down?' Croder suggested.

There was a hewn bench below Marius, the saint. Croder's claw hit the carved edge with the sound of a stone dropping onto a coffin, scattering echoes; he's never careful with it, doesn't find it embarrassing: I've seen him open a tin of sardines with it, push in the broken cork of a '92 Pommard, and, once, smash through the window of a Jaguar and hook the driver's throat before he could take off.

'It's so bloody cold in here,' I said, and sat down near him. Not too many executives, I suppose, would come so close to telling the Chief of Signals he'd chosen an inconvenient rendezvous.

'Yes, I apologise – you don't like the cold, do you? But we needed total security, as you can imagine, and I rather left things to Legge. But I was glad to see you turn up – I thought you'd crashed.'