No, she was just someone in his courier line, that was all. With one of her blackened finger-bones or the charred remnant of an ear lying inside the coffin by mistake, to be prayed over in ignorance by his grieving widow — how complicated life can be, my friend, how very poetic.

'What traces might he have left?' Elliott was asking me.

'None at his safe-house: I went in there. All his signals were verbal, the last three to London by phone at a courier's flat. His code book would have been on him in the car.'

The beam of some headlights swung across the windscreen as a BMW came into the car park and went past us, accelerating. Chandler started the engine.

'What about the courier?' Elliott asked me. 'The woman?'

'You mean traces?'

'Yes.'

'I don't know. The whole line went to ground the minute the news got out. You'd have to check through their base.'

We started moving, following the BMW.

Elliott switched off the Sanyo and put it away, leaning forward and saying something to Chandler; all I caught was 'till they signal', or it sounded like that. Then he sat back again.

'Is that it?' I asked him.

'Oh,' he turned to me quickly, 'yes, many thanks. We just needed it on the record, confirming your report from Bombay.'

'So what am I doing in Berlin?'

'We did the debriefing — ' he looked at his nails ' — because it was convenient. We want you here to meet someone.' A quick smile. 'Won't take long.'

He was being too bloody reassuring, and I had the sudden feeling I was sitting here on my way to an execution. 'Who?'

I shouldn't have asked, but it was too late.