‘Good, I think,’ said Harkness. ‘Five obvious messages, four doubtful.’

‘Imagine the Russians will have intercepted?’

‘Maybe not all,’ said Harkness, who was given to caution. ‘But some; I’m sure they will have monitored some. Be astonishing if they hadn’t.’

‘Dangerous then?’

Harkness frowned at the question. He was a neat, proper man, pink-faced and tightly barbered: the suits were always dark and waistcoated and unobtrusive, the shirts hard-collared, the ties bland. People never remembered Richard Harkness: he didn’t want them to. ‘It was dangerous, from the beginning,’ he said.

Still looking out over London, Wilson said, ‘Sometimes I think how safe and protected we are here. Not like the poor buggers out there in the streets.’

Harkness, who was accustomed to his superior’s occasional philosophising, said nothing.

Wilson bent, massaging his rigidly stiff knee. ‘We’re going to need a lot of luck,’ he said. ‘A hell of a lot of luck.’

‘Somebody is,’ said Harkness.

Chapter Two

It took three days for the purchase to be made and Charlie was cheated. It wasn’t Hargrave, he knew: the poor old sod was as much a victim as he was, bullied by Prudell into taking or leaving what he was offered. For half a pound of tobacco Charlie got a flat medicine bottle of whisky, less than half what it should have been. As soon as he tasted it, Charlie knew it had been watered, too: he hoped it really had been water. Weakened or not, it was still marvellous. Bloody marvellous, in fact, the warmth of the booze feeling out through his chest and then deep into his gut, the welcome return of an old friend. Charlie knew it would be weeks before he could save up another sufficient quantity of tobacco and so he rationed himself, one sip in the morning, another in the afternoon, holding it in his mouth until it began to burn and then slowly releasing it, savouring its journey. Marvellous.