We can refuse anything we like and we don't have to explain, because it's our life, or our death, and they know that.

"Then he might give you someone else," Tilson said gently, and went on checking the papers as our driver went through the red lights into Parliament Square. "In any case we might as well clear you, to save time." He held the papers up to the window at an angle to catch the light from the street. "No next of kin, sole bequest to St Dunstan's — you want any changes? And five hundred roses."

The man beside him was digging in his pocket, and held out a Walther P.38.

"He doesn't want anything like that," Tilson said. "Put it away."

They're always changing the staff in Firearms.

"Sign here, old horse, when you've read it."

"Cross out five hundred," I said, "and put one."

"One rose?"

"Yes."

"Right you are. One rose for Moira."

I'd had time to think about that in Moscow, when that bastard Ignatov was following me through the snow.

I signed the form and sat back, watching the rush of green leaves as we passed Victoria Tower Gardens. The driver went through the red again past Lambeth Bridge and we heard a siren start up but she didn't take any notice; they'd seen our plates now, and the siren died away.

"Croder's all right," Tilson said as he put the papers into his briefcase. "He looks after his people, you know that."

I let it go. The swinging of the street lamps past the windows was beginning to sicken me and I didn't want to talk, least of all about Croder. Koyama had taken all morning to straighten me out, working on the nervous meridians and concentrating on the spinal column; but the lingering influence of the phenobarbitone was still fogging the system and throwing me off balance.

"Slow down a bit here, would you?" Tilson asked the driver, then turned to me again, talking quietly. We were going along Grosvenor Road now and I could see the flat expanse of the Thames. "The thing is to see how you feel when you arrive there, old fruit. You're not committed, after all; I mean we all realise you're still a bit groggy."