It was true that the last thing he wanted to do was hold the Service back, and that some of his most important contacts within the intelligence community were making way for their successors and their old, owed favours were evaporating before Holland had chance to call them in. But it was still his duty to protect Britain. And, if the man sitting in front of him who had managed to extract him so efficiently from Leconfield proved anything, it was that the intelligence fight with the Soviets was nowhere near a stalemate.

However, it was Holland himself that needed protecting now, and all he could do was hope that Knox or someone else from MI5 had noticed he was missing and was chasing close behind him.

Hope, and try to get through to Williams.

‘Are you fully aware of what you’re doing?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Williams replied.

‘Do you know why you’re doing it?’

‘I don’t need to.’

‘You never used to be the kind of soldier who followed orders blindly. You always wanted to know what you were going into battle for.’

‘I’m not the person you knew.’

Williams slowed the car again and turned a near-invisible corner, confirming to Holland that he knew exactly where he was going.

‘I think there’s still some of the Jack Williams who used to work for me inside you,’ Holland said. ‘The Jack Williams who was a loyal officer for a decade and cared about his country, colleagues, and friends so much he’d willingly offer to sacrifice himself over and over to keep them safe.’

Holland felt the car accelerate sharply and saw the needle on the speedometer momentarily jump a few miles per hour.

‘You can think that if you like,’ Williams replied. ‘But if you keep talking I’ll shoot you.’

‘Whoever is making you do this didn’t go to so much effort just for you to kill me,’ Holland said.

‘I didn’t say I’d kill you.’

Williams’s mind was finally, mostly, at peace.

The slicing shards of confused memories had dulled, then faded away. He no longer tumbled or hung in a void, at the whim of forces that were determined to crush or pull him apart. And the maze he’d been so lost in was gone.

In its place was a single path, a line that stretched out in front of him and reached back behind him, through London and Haina to every barren room and wilderness where his psyche had been so carefully prepared for what lay ahead.