‘Technically he’s still in my custody,’ she said.

Knox put his coffee down.

‘He’s been through enough with you looking after him, don’t you think?’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘That he came to you for help, and you used him.’

The words were heavy with betrayal. It was a cruel, abrupt precis of what had happened, but Bennett couldn’t argue with it. So she said nothing.

Knox knew they both lived in the murky world between right and wrong. For him, that meant he always had to be sure his moral compass was at least pointing in the right direction. It was a quality they’d once shared, but it seemed like in the last five years other forces had taken control of Bennett’s needle.

‘If you were going to deny it, that was your chance,’ he said.

After a long pause Bennett finally spoke. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

‘And you’ve turned into an agency stooge, incapable of taking responsibility for your own actions.’

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Please, show me some evidence to the contrary,’ Knox shot back. ‘We’re supposed to be fighting torturers, not handing people over to them.’

‘You have no idea what I’m fighting,’ Bennett almost shouted, before she got up from the table and paced a loop of the open-plan. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing, but if I don’t bring him in I’ll be fired, and I won’t be able to do much good then.’

Her sentiment might have been genuine, but to Knox it was still an evasion.

‘Are you doing much good now?’ Knox asked.

The question was deeper, more philosophical than he’d meant, and more cutting.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t like what Hoffman’s planning, but now you know about it you can cut him off, when I have Williams back. I know how much he means to you.’

‘You do,’ Knox replied. ‘And you still let this happen to him.’

Bennett took a breath, leaning against the kitchen counter.

‘I want to help him,’ she said. ‘And I want to work together so we can both win.’

‘There are no winners in this scenario.’ Knox’s voice was hard. ‘A British citizen and MI5 officer has been physically and mentally abused by the CIA, because of you, and now you want to hunt him down so he can be paraded down the Mall like some trophy. So, thank you for your kind offer of assistance, but you can consider yourself absolved of your responsibility. We’ll take care of him now.’

‘Really?’ Bennett said. ‘Because you already lost him once.’

It was a knee-jerk reaction to Knox’s personal attack, and probably the worst thing Bennett could have said.

‘Get out,’ Knox said through clenched teeth.

‘I’m sorry, Richard,’ Bennett replied. ‘I didn’t mean that. This isn’t how I wanted this conversation to go.’