Yates picked up the folder containing photographs of the Soviet students. He’d already studied them many times. He’d seen them step off the plane, watched them enter the hotel. He wasn’t entirely confident that the young woman he’d spotted on the streets in Harlem could be counted among their number. How did she manage to leave the hotel without being seen? In the bustle he’d only caught her face for a moment and then she’d passed him by before disappearing down another street, apparently not making contact with Jesse Austin, the best-known Communist sympathizer in the area. It had been such an unlikely appearance, and an improbable location for a young white girl. Yates had returned to his car, noting the waiting cab and deciding he was going to wait too. The young woman had not returned. In the end the taxi driver had left without a passenger. It was impossible to see into Jesse’s apartment from the street. After forty minutes Yates had given up too, impatient to check his suspicions back at the hotel.

Flicking through the photographs, he stopped. The woman’s photograph was in black and white. Her name was Elena. She was seventeen years old. She was sharing a room with her older sister. Yates walked to the table where the translator was stationed for that room.

—What are they doing?

The woman translating pulled down her headphones, speaking with a thick Russian accent. Yates hid his disapproval: he was dealing with an immigrant, the least reliable of the linguists.

—The older sister has been watching the television.

—And the younger sister? Elena?

—She went swimming.

—When did she go?

The translator checked the log.

—She left the room at ten a.m.

—Did you report this?

—She was followed to the pool.

—Has she returned?

—No.

—All those hours at a swimming pool? You don’t think it’s strange she hasn’t returned?

Jim picked up the translator’s empty coffee mug, banging it against the table – a startlingly loud noise in the otherwise hushed atmosphere of the room. Everyone looked at him.

—I want to know the location of one of the girls, Elena, eighteen years old. She was reported to be in the swimming-pool area.

An agent raised his hand, said nervously:

—The girl was followed into the swimming-pool area. We have an agent outside.

—Is she still there?

—She hasn’t left.

—The agent can see her? Right now – he can see what’s she doing?

There was silence, then a hesitant response.

—The agent isn’t in the pool area. He’s stationed outside. But she hasn’t passed him. She has to be in there.

—You’re willing to bet your career on that, are you?

The man’s confidence fell away. He began to stammer:

—That’s the only way into the pool. If she hasn’t passed him she’s got to be in there.