‘Threats against one’s life unfortunately come with high office,’ he said. ‘And ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’re unsubstantiated, or made by people woefully incapable of carrying them out. But it’s that one other occasion that concerns us, and sometimes the incredible trumps the credible.’ He turned to Knox. ‘I want you and Miss Bennett to go to the ballet. We’ll watch from here. And I want you to go down to the quartermaster and have him issue you a sidearm.’

Knox nodded as Holland pre-empted the question forming on his lips.

‘Pascal’s wager,’ the director general said. ‘If Williams is wrong and we do something, we’ll have egg on our face. But if he’s right and we do nothing, the Russians might feel well within their rights to start launching missiles at us.’

‘I don’t have anything to wear,’ Bennett said, half joking.

‘That won’t be a problem,’ Holland replied as the door to his office opened and Sarah stepped inside, carrying two long quilted dress bags over her arm.

‘This is for you,’ Sarah said, handing one of them to Bennett.

‘You’re coming?’ Knox asked, looking at the second bag, which Sarah had kept hold of.

‘I wasn’t going to miss this evening for the world,’ she replied.

‘And I couldn’t stop her,’ Holland added.

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Covent Garden was dark, cold, and wet. A brief spring shower had slicked the market’s cobbles, driving away any last-minute customers but also saving the traders from having to wash them down as they closed their stalls.

Anna strode across the north side of the piazza.

She was wearing the deep-gold gown she’d bought on Bond Street after her early-morning trip to Shepherd’s Bush. The dress looked like it had been fitted perfectly to her physique, the sleeveless, boat-neck bodice hugging her figure before flaring out at her waist. She’d picked it after wandering in and out of a succession of exclusive boutiques. Anna loved shopping for expensive clothes. It reminded her of all the wardrobes full of fine dresses she’d rifled through in the less damaged but still abandoned mansions of Dresden, and the hours she’d spent pretending they were her clothes and her palatial homes before her deeper urges forced her to skulk away to darker places.

Her only concession to the coolness of the evening was the black shawl draped over her elbows, which she’d bought along with her dress and a small emerald clutch that contained a bright scarlet Helena Rubinstein lipstick, and Elizabeth Arden powder compact, a few pound notes, and two welded-together metal tubes. She carried the clutch in her left hand, and held her invitation card between the immaculately French-manicured fingers of her right.