Tilney had the pencil between two fingers, and was swinging it up and down; it was getting on my nerves.

'You didn't see much of each other, did you, in the ordinary way?'

'I was in Budapest with him once, setting up a courier line. We did some infiltration work in Beirut a couple of years ago. He was first class, but I'm sure you know that. I enjoyed working with him.'

'And he clearly had a lot of respect for you.'

'I've no idea.'

'I mean for him to telephone you, instead of someone else, to ask for help.'

'Oh for Christ's sake, how do I know?' I got out of the chair and went across to the window, and there was the street down there, the lamplight and the first buses, the world waking up for all of us, but not for McCane. I was letting my nerves show, shouldn't have said that, I needed sleep, but couldn't have any. How long would it be, how long before this smell was out of my clothes, out of my soul, this smell of burning?

Tilney's voice came from behind me. Well, I think that'll do it for now.' He snapped the recorder off. 'Anything else occurs to you, give me a buzz.'

I turned round from the window. 'All right. Now get me in to see Shatner, will you?'

He looked at me. 'Don't you think you ought to crash first?'

'No.'

He puckered his lips, then picked up the phone and talked to a couple of people, trying to find Shatner. The controls aren't easy to run to ground in this place: they're either in Signals or briefing or debriefing or holed up with the top brass working out our destinies, where to put which ferret in the field and how soon, how to run him and when to call him in, how much risk to put on his back and how much mercy to show him when it looks like breaking. I was not, on this black winter morning, inclined to think good of anyone.