The control room was on the first floor, off the balcony overlooking the entrance hall. It had about a dozen screens monitoring entrances and vulnerable points of the building, all switching angles every few seconds. The security staff, who were not uniformed, followed them in silence, occasionally intervening to change angle or revert to a previous shot. A telephone rang and was answered in a hushed tone. The silence, Charles suspected, was partly because Gareth Horley was standing just inside the door, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking on. He usually wore jeans on his Brussels trips, along with slim brown shoes from Tricker’s of Jermyn Street – a fact he had twice mentioned to Charles – a white T-shirt and an expensive brown leather jacket. With his tanned regular features emphasising the blue of his eyes and his dark hair edged with grey, he looked every inch a confident, successful man of middle age travelling for a mixture of business and pleasure, which was the impression intended. He smiled as Charles approached and made way for him.

‘Good trip, then?’ said Charles.

‘Fantastic trip. He told me their bottom line. Agreed at the EU Commission meeting on Thursday. Naturally, they’re not going to reveal it to us in the negotiations but they would settle for it if they can’t get us to up our public offer to theirs.’

‘Sure it’s the real thing?’

‘Everything else he’s said has checked out.’

They spoke in lowered voices. Charles patted Gareth on the shoulder. ‘Well done.’

‘It’s so sensitive, this, more than anything else he’s told us. We’ve got to be very careful with distribution. Number Ten might not want even the negotiating team to know in case by their manner or what they say or don’t say they give it away. Remember that Ames and Hansen business.’

Aldrich Ames was a CIA officer who had spied for the Russians. In conducting the damage assessment for MI6, Charles had long sessions with the FBI team doing the same for the Americans. The nature of their questions, their keen interest in some areas and their unaccountable lack of it in others had led him to conclude that they believed they had another spy, but didn’t want to admit to it and didn’t yet know who or where. The spy turned out to be Hansen, an FBI officer as damaging as Ames. ‘Let me see it before you talk to the Foreign Office.’

‘I’ll finish it off later this afternoon. Just thought I ought to show my face here as I’m in.’

‘No sign yet?’