If I had, my face would have become, in those six months, the most recognisable feature ever to have spanned the crossed hairs of a telescopic rifle-sight. That wouldn't have worried me because I'd moved between Berlin and Hanover and back with a constant cover of six men, like a pocket president. But my insistence on secrecy had got me on this hook. After six months I knew Berlin like my face, yet my face was unknown in Berlin.

No wonder they'd come for me.

For a while Pol must have thought I'd refuse. Then he knew it was going to be all right, and had put the briefcase on my knees. It would contain all the information they could give me, all the names, suspects, dossiers, leads and theories they could cull from the whole of the Bureau files, a complete and exhaustive breakdown on the field. But they'd come for me because I knew even more.

"Pol," I said.

He was sitting with his arms folded, head tilted, watching the show. His head tilted the other way, towards me.

I said: "Tell them not to try tapping my phone again. I want to be able to know that if I hear any clicks, it's the adverse party doing it."

"Very well."

"No cover."

"Noted."

"Communication Post and Bourse."

"Available."

When the stage began filling and the music was loud I asked him for his photo and he gave it to me. The zip on the briefcase was the interlocking plastic flange type and opened silently. Inside was the folder with the black cover. It was the memorandum. Between the typed lines was written, invisibly, my future. In detail it gave specific outline to the manner of my life. It made no mention of the possible manner of my death. It was thus a highly personal document, and on the cover was a single letter: Q.