That was routine: this looked like a wet affair and the Bureau would try for an immediate blackout. The Bureau doesn't officially exist, and if anything awkward happens in public we go to ground. The police here wouldn't ask us any questions, because of our cards.

Tilson moved his feet again. "Sorry we had to break up your evening, old fruit. The thing is, we need to know for certain whether it's Sinclair, and you knew him better than most."

I'd left him keeping guard on the wreck, and come down here on foot along the embankment to report to Chandler, and now I looked into the dull blue stare of the man on the ground and said, "Yes, this is Sinclair."

People were still strolling along the Embankment fifteen minutes later as I drove beside the river, heading for Cheyne Gardens.

I'd thought of ringing the girl at her place and trying to patch up the evening, but it wouldn't have been much use, even if she agreed. Tonight I was grieving, and scared. I'd known Sinclair for a long time, and done some work with him in various parts of the world, tricky work that had taken him right to the edge of things, as it takes all of us when we're out there in the field; but they'd come for him and got him right on his home ground, and that hadn't happened before to any of us. In London they know where we are and we know where they are — mostly at the embassies — and there's no point in starting trouble because it could escalate and end in a massacre and shake the whole of the diplomatic structure.

But they'd gone for Sinclair with a purpose and nailed him down, and the thing that scared me was the knowledge that there must be something awfully big going on in the background, and going wrong.