A quick smile — 'thank you. Shall I get you cleared?'

She didn't have any printed forms here so I gave it to her verbatim and she made notes — no medical problems, date of last vaccination, no request for a codicil, bequests unchanged. Then she made some notes of her own and I signed them: active service waiver in the event of death, responsibility for expenses incurred, the undertaking to protect secrecy — most of the forms they had for this kind of thing at the Bureau were from the Foreign Office and totally out of date, and every time we ask them to do something about it guess what happens.

I made the final signature and Jane asked me: 'Do you want a capsule?'

Her eyes widened a little as she watched me.

'Ask them to send one out with my DIF. I shouldn't need one before then.'

She looked down. 'Or at all, I hope.' she made a note and shut the pad.

'They probably told you that as far as we know you'll be operating in the USSR, so there's a good little second-hand clothes shop for men I can take you to first thing in the morning — they've got shoes as well. And you can start letting your nails grow and don't wash your hair too often, work up a bit of stubble — but I'm sure you know all this, you're very — '

'Reminders are invaluable.'

She suddenly drew in a deep breath and let it out again. 'You're being terribly polite, but it's just that — you know — I don't get many people coming through here with your track record and I think I'm rather desperate to get everything right. Blown my cover?'

'Not really.'

She finished her coffee and said, 'Okay, I'll get you some blankets and we'll pull out the couch, bathroom's through there, you won't disturb Amy.' she levered her legs out of the half-lotus and took the pad over to the phone table and put it into the drawer and locked it and came back.

'You do ballet?' I asked her.