Extricating herself from the maternal web last night had meant that Liz hadn’t got on to the motorway until 10 p.m., and hadn’t reached the Kentish Town flat until midnight. When she let herself in she found that the washing that she’d put on on Saturday morning was lying in six inches of cloudy water in the machine, which had stopped mid-cycle. It was now far too late to start it again without annoying the neighbours, so she rooted through the dry-cleaning pile for her least crumpled work outfit, hung it over the bath, and took a shower in the hope that the steam would restore a little of its elan. When she finally made it to bed it was almost 1 a.m. She had managed about five and a half hours’ sleep and felt puffy-eyed, adrift on a tide of fatigue.
With a gasp and a long, flatulent shudder, the tube train restarted. She was definitely going to be late.
2
Thames House, the headquarters of MI5, is on Millbank. A vast and imposing edifice of Portland stone, eight storeys in height, it crouches like a great pale ghost a few hundred yards south of the Palace of Westminster.
That morning, as always, Millbank smelt of diesel fumes and the river. Clutching her coat around her against the rain-charged wind, watching for the sodden plane-tree leaves on which it was all too easy to turn an ankle, Liz hurried up the entrance steps. Bag swinging, she pushed open one of the doors into the lobby, raised a quick hand in greeting to the security guards at the desk, and slotted her smart pass into the barrier.