‘There’s a range of places I’d like to know more about: Kazakh security services to start with, then Gazprom offices and the Russian embassy.’ I pointed out the internet café Joanna had used and asked him to see if there were any traces of her activity there. ‘Callum Walker in the room below us heads the company Joanna works for: Vectis Global Insight. I’d like to know why she’s working for them, and anything they might be keeping from me.’

Then I showed him the plan of the Vectis office.

‘All their computing’s on a closed network but I reckon we can establish a physical breach.’ I handed him the swipe pass from Piper’s bag. He turned it in his fingers. ‘TensorCo electronic gates at the front,’ I said. ‘Dozy security, two dozen different companies across the building. The swipe will work the lifts as well. Office entrance is pincode; possibly 3579 or 3570. Facilities maintenance for the building is done by a German company called Apleona, and that includes tech. Server room’s in the basement.’

‘And this is a job for Six?’

‘It’s a job for me.’

‘How are your diplomatic relations with the Kazakh government when I end up in a cell?’

‘We use the usual contingency plans. There’s a big security team here; you don’t have to worry about that.’

He looked uneasy. I was leaving when he said, ‘What do you want me to do about the bots?’

I stopped. I’d almost forgotten my request to Evotec regarding the psychological war being waged online.

‘Have you got a lead on it?’

He typed in a password. The face of a young woman appeared on the screen of the MacBook. She was pale, in her early twenties, Caucasian with a touch of Kazakh; streaks in the hair and a certain force in the dark eyes.

‘Who’s that?’

‘The enemy. You wanted to know about online activity. This has just come through from the team. She connects to pro-Russian blogs. You’ll be pleased to know you’re right: there’s a massive online information warfare operation going on.’

They’d identified over two hundred accounts, a lot simply amplifying a core of ten or twenty with original content, ‘handwritten’, so to speak. The handwriting meant you could compare phrases and grammar to open-source social media.

‘She runs this site,’ Stefan said. ‘Aliya in Astana. Favourable to Russia. Favourable to the fight against Islamist terrorism. Anti-Western oil companies. She posts heavily on Vkontakte.’

I studied the face again. There was something haunting about it; someone you’d find yourself watching without meaning to. I wondered if it was computer-generated.