Cold-blooded bastards. I felt the wind knocked out of me. Ruthlessness like that spelled desperation. I looked around, and the absence of any visible company seemed threatening in itself. The question I’d be asking is: why are you still alive? Then the absence filled with guilt. I saw Stevenson in the library, where I’d first met him, flapping the pages of a newspaper as if in endless irritation. Over a long career, there were only two other individuals for whose death I felt directly responsible, but they happened in the course of authorised operations; I could offload some of the guilt. Not here.

Tom Marsh had tried calling twice in the last hour. I went to a public phone box, exhaling with relief when he answered.

‘You’re okay?’

‘Just.’

‘When did you last speak to him?’

‘I spoke to him the afternoon before he was killed.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He asked if I’d had any email contact with Joanna – he was interested in an IP address.’

‘Which IP address?’

Marsh gave it. It was the IP address for KS internet café, Kiber Sports: Joanna’s last known location.

‘That’s an internet café over here.’

‘Well, Hugh seemed to think there was more information we could get out of it. Asked about hacking in, whether I thought you had.’

‘Whether I had?’

‘Yes.’

‘You think he didn’t trust me?’

‘He was trying to establish what was going on. Listen, Hugh was killed less than a couple of hours after speaking to me, not at night like the papers are saying. I spoke to his partner, Sunil. He said Hugh had a taxi booked to go somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘Cording House, St James’s Street.’

I could picture St James’s Street: grey-stoned Georgian blocks between Piccadilly and Pall Mall. According to Marsh, Cording House was currently the headquarters of a company called Talon.

‘It does defence technology – research and development. Used to be part of the government’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency. Still comes up as List X.’

I’d heard of Talon. It was one of several companies created in the early 2000s, when the government privatised its defence research. List X contractors were those approved to handle classified governmental material, with sufficient in-house security of their own. Which made sense if they used to be a governmental department and were still supplying tech to the UK military.

‘Any idea who he was going to visit?’

‘No. Apparently he knew someone with information. Someone he trusted.’

By the time I got back to the hotel, they’d finished searching the place and departed. I found two listening devices and dismantled them. I went up to the top floor of the hotel and brought up a number listed for Talon Inc. But I had no idea what I’d say to whoever answered. A company like that would be stuffed with individuals close to government and intelligence. Hugh could know any number of them.