'Only when I ask for it.'

'That's a pity. It could finish you off, one fine day. I just hope it doesn't happen while I'm running you.'

I went back to my flat in Sloane Square and showered and slept for three hours. When I got up I put the clothes I'd worn last night into a plastic bag and phoned Harry and asked him to take them to the cleaners as soon as he could; the smell of burning was pervasive, lingering. Then I phoned the stage door at the St James's, but Thea was in the middle of rehearsal and I left a message saying I couldn't make it this evening, and phoned The Conservatory and asked them to send flowers for the opening night tomorrow.

It was eleven o'clock when I checked in again at the Bureau. They told me they'd arranged for me to have tea with Helen Maitland in Reigate at four, and that gave me time to look over the documented briefing that Shatner had given McCane and go over the present situation in Berlin regarding the Red Army Faction's activities. Shatner said there was no need for me to go through Clearance at this stage; a lot was going to depend on how much Helen Maitland was prepared to help us and whether she could give us any positive information to work on.

When I left Whitehall and drove south along Millbank by the Thames I didn't have any sense of professional engagement. Shatner had officially started running me but there was no actual mission on the board and the truth was, after all, that the reason that was driving me south from London on this cold November afternoon was purely personal. I owed a man a death.