Chavasse lay with his head pillowed on one arm and stared up at the ceiling through the darkness. He was tired – more tired than he had been in a long time, and yet he couldn’t sleep. He switched on the bedside lamp and reached for a cigarette. As he struck a match, the telephone started to ring.

He lifted the receiver quickly and a woman’s voice sounded in his ear, cool and impersonal. “Paul, is that you?”

He pushed himself up against the pillow. “Who’s speaking?”

“Jean Frazer. Your flight got into London Airport from Greece three hours ago. Why haven’t you checked in?”

“What’s the rush?” Chavasse said. “I made a preliminary report from Athens yesterday. I’ll see the Chief in the morning.”

“You’ll see him now,” Jean Frazer said. “And you’d better hurry. He’s been waiting for you since that flight got in.”

Chavasse frowned. “What the hell for? I’ve just done two months in Greece and it wasn’t pleasant. I’m entitled to a night’s sleep, at least.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” she told him calmly. “Now get your clothes on like a good little boy. I’ll send a car round for you.”

Her receiver clicked into place and he cursed softly and threw back the bedclothes. He pulled on a pair of pants and padded across to the bathroom in his bare feet.

His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep and there was a bad taste in his mouth. He filled a glass with water and drank it slowly, savoring its freshness, and then quickly rinsed his head and shoulders in cold water.

As he toweled himself dry, he examined his face in the mirror. There were dark circles under the eyes, and faint lines of fatigue had drawn the skin tightly over the high cheekbones that were a heritage from his French father.

It was a handsome, even an aristocratic, face, the face of a scholar, and somehow the ugly, puckered scar of the old gunshot wound in the left shoulder looked incongruous and out of place.