The CIA had found out about Kosygin’s secret summit with Wilson weeks ago thanks to one of their sources in the civil service. Hoffman was, unsurprisingly, as furious about it as he was about the UK being on the verge of re-electing a left-wing government.

He paused to take a breath, and Bennett took the opportunity to steer the conversation back towards something close to a purpose.

‘Let me help find Williams,’ she said. ‘I have a connection with him, and his friends.’

Hoffman smiled. ‘Oh you’re not going to help find him. You’re going to do it. By yourself.’

‘I’ll need support,’ Bennett said. ‘I can’t do this without a ground team.’

Hoffman shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘He could be anywhere in the city, or the country, by now.’

‘That’s your problem. You got yourself into this mess so you can get yourself out of it, without dragging anyone here down with you. Get him back in twenty-four hours, or you’re out. And I’ll send people after him who won’t be as friendly as you’re so keen to be.’

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

One and a half thousand miles away, Major Natalya Yegerova was also being kept up to date about the day’s events in London.

In the run-up to Kosygin’s trip to the British capital, all residentura spies in the Soviet embassy and Directorate S’s illegal operatives spread throughout the city were on high alert and feeding constant reports to Moscow. Yegerova read everything that was sent to Directorate S, and anything else that arrived at the Lubyanka she could get her hands on. She was particularly interested in the sudden appearance of a low-level CIA agent who should have been on the other side of the Atlantic, sweating in the Caribbean sun, and her eventful meeting with the director general of MI5’s right-hand man in Regent’s Park.

‘Tell me again what the message said about the third person,’ she said to the junior Directorate S officer standing on the other side of her narrow desk. ‘Precisely.’

‘Our agent described him as white, in his late thirties or early forties,’ the young man repeated. ‘They said he looked thin and confused.’

It wasn’t standard protocol to include so much description in coded message bursts. But on this occasion Yegerova wasn’t going to issue a reprimand.

‘And they were certain he arrived with the American?’ she asked.

The officer nodded. Just as Knox had been followed from Leconfield House, Bennett and the man with her had also been shadowed to Regent’s Park from the American embassy.

‘Good,’ Yegerova said. ‘You may go.’

The officer nodded, turned on his heel and waited until he was out of Yegerova’s office before rolling his eyes.