"It's your problem."

"Wrong, Mr. Perry. It's your problem because it's your life."

"Your problem and you deal with it."

"That's ridiculous."

The voice was a whisper: "Men like you, they came, they told me of the threat, they told me to quit, run. I listened, I quit, I ran. I'm not spending the rest of my life, every day that remains of my life, like a chicken in a coop wondering if the fox has found me. It is your responsibility, it's owed me. If the fox comes, shoot it. Understand me? Shoot it… What did you ever do for your country?"

Geoff Markham heard Fenton's snort, then the cut of the sarcasm.

"Oh, we're there, are we? Playing the patriot's card. A man of letters once said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."

"I worked for my country. My head was on the block for it."

"While lining a damn deep pocket…"

"I am staying, this is my home."

It was a good room, Geoff Markham thought. There was decent furniture, a solid sideboard and a chest of dark wood, low tables. It suited the room, which was lived-in. He could see it was a home. When he was not sleeping at Vicky's, he lived in an anonymous, sterile, one-bed roomed apartment in west London. Here, a child's books were on the floor, an opened technical magazine, and a cotton bag from which peeped a woman's embroidery. Invitations to drinks and social functions stood on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. If it had been Markham's, he, too, would have tried to cling to it… But he had seen bodies, in Ireland, of men who had not covered their tracks, had made themselves available to their killers. He had seen their white, dead faces, the dried blood pools below their cheeks, and hair matted with brain tissue and bone fragments… They could whistle up the removals company; there were people who did discreet business for them. They could have him loaded within twenty-four hours, gone, lost.