'The rod across his back.' The fleck of daisies in the lawn brought a tremor of irritation to Mawby's mouth. The weeds in the rose beds buckled his lips in annoyance. 'It's a damned shame they can't keep these places the way they used to be able to. When I first came here there were a couple of gardeners full time, absolute picture the place was, really rather a pleasure to be here for a few days. Bloody mess now… Get him up, Henry, get him out of his bed, and we'll have another go.'

Mawby swung on his heel, gouged a muddy smear in the wet grass, flailed the insects besieging his face, frightened the chaffinches into flight.

'I'll do that, Mr Mawby,' said Carter.

From the darkened outline of the house a light burned in a window set under the eaves. That's where the boy would be, Carter thought, probably dressed, probably gazing at the wall, probably close to tears because of failure to please and win approval. He'd be sitting there moping the time away till lie was ready for sleep. Even odds, if he could turn the clock back, he'd be heading for Geneva and then the Aeroflot to Moscow. But Willi Guttmann was wanted as a jewel for Charles Mawby and had been offered as a subject for consideration by the Joint Intelligence Committee in the morning.

'Bad luck, young Willi,' Carter said quietly to himself. ''I think you jumped the wrong way.'

The Ambassador who was the Permanent Representative of the Soviet Union at the Conference for the Committee on Disarmament sat in a comfortable chair close to the woodfire. He had not asked the KGB officer to be seated. As a career diplomat he had no love for the security man whose job entitled him to wander roughshod across the protocol and rank of the delegation.

'I cannot see any mystery in this matter,' the Ambassador said.

'I have not spoken of mystery,' Valeri Sharygin said. 'I have said only that it was extraordinary for Guttmann to go to the lake on such a night, in such weather. For an experienced sailor it was peculiar behaviour.'