"Yes," he said briefly, "we can assume that is how they got onto you. I'm glad you can still think straight. How do you feel generally?"

"I'll be all right when Koyama gets here."

"I've sent for him."

"I'm operational, if you've got anything for me."

He looked away in frustration. "You're not recovered yet. We'll send some flowers to the young lady, the one you were dining with. Your car's a total write-off and we'll see to the insurance claim. Our chief concern for the moment is keeping you out of harm's way, and I suppose this is as good a place as any."

"You're expecting them to try again?"

"Of course."

"Who are they, Chandler?"

"We don't know."

"They're not the Soviets."

"No. This is quite out of character."

"Someone from the Far East, who followed Sinclair to London?"

"We've considered that. We've been in signals all night with Taiwan, Hong Kong and Seoul. He was doing something for us in Seoul, you see, before he flew back via Taiwan and Calcutta."

"Was he on a specific mission?"

"It's not in my province to know. Mr Croder was running him."

"Then it was something big." I said:

"They killed Sinclair to shut him up. But why did they try to kill me? They couldn't have — " then his thin dark-suited body span against the wall and the lights blacked out and all I could hear was a kind of buzzing, and after a very long time his voice fading in.

"… the doctor here?"

"What?"

"Do you want me to get the doctor here?"

He was standing over me with his dark hollow eyes watching me closely. "How long was I out for?" I asked him.

"Only a few seconds."

I looked at the wall clock, but couldn't focus. "No. No doctor. Only Koyama."