Knox realised Laing really had no idea what he’d driven all the way from London into the middle of, and decided that after what he’d got for his trouble he deserved to be properly brought in on what was going on. He added some colour and detail to how he’d come to meet Bennett on their joint mission that was still a fairly well known part of MI5’s recent history, and told him about Jack Williams, whose story was less well remembered. Laing knew Williams’s name, but only from reading it on the memorial to lost Service officers in Leconfield House.

‘I shouldn’t have come after you,’ Laing said after Knox had explained why he’d taken Williams out of London instead of coming into MI5 headquarters and spending the day twiddling his thumbs.

Before Dungeness, Knox would have agreed with Laing. But while he could blame Bennett’s appearance there on him, it wouldn’t be fair to heap the responsibility for the attack on his shoulders too. They’d all been blindsided, and were all now suffering for it. Laing had lost a lot of blood, Knox had lost Williams again, and he had no idea what his best friend and Bennett were currently being subjected to.

‘I don’t think any of us could have predicted how today was going to turn out,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry you got caught up in it.’

‘Do you think they were KGB?’ Laing asked.

‘It’s likely. We can send someone down to take a look at the motorbike, though I doubt they left their logbook for us to find.’

Laing exhaled, and Knox guessed it wasn’t from pain but from making the connection that he had when he’d seen their attackers up close: they were the pair that had screeched past Laing’s Consul and Knox’s Jaguar just before they’d reached the beach, and had possibly followed them, and Bennett, all the way from London.

‘Still,’ Knox continued, ‘process of elimination points that way. They certainly weren’t MI5, and Bennett’s been hung out to dry on this by the new London COS. But we don’t know for definite who’s been holding Williams all this time, or what they’ve done to him.’

Laing thought for a moment, then asked, ‘What if he wasn’t a prisoner? What if he was an asset gone rogue, and the Russians want him back?’

Knox had to stop himself from slamming on the brakes. Laing had leaped straight to the one possibility that Knox absolutely refused to consider.

‘There’s no evidence to suggest Williams is anything other than a victim in all this,’ he said, firmly. ‘Any speculation has to start from that point.’

‘Either way, the DG will have to insist that Wilson can’t meet Kosygin while a KGB hit squad has kidnapped an MI5 officer and CIA agent.’