‘I can’t make the call, Rose. I wish I could, but I can’t. They have the most sophisticated voice recognition software this side of Langley on that line. I say one word and all hell will break loose. They’ll tear the fucking roof off this building to get me, kill anyone who gets in their way. Trust me. I know.’ I held up my wrists. ‘You think I did this to myself?’ Then I pointed to my ankles. ‘And that? You think I shot myself in the shoulder and then strung myself up? As everyone keeps reminding me, I’m not fucking Houdini.’

She let the hand holding the phone fall to her side. She looked scared now – but in dread of the situation, not of me. That fear was good: it meant that she believed me. As long as her fear didn’t turn into panic, it meant I could control her.

‘Who is “they”?’ she asked. Scared, but not stupid. She was taking nothing for granted.

‘I don’t know, Rose.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Honestly. I don’t know. That’s why I’m in here, why I’m asking you for help.’ And that, finally, was the truth. If my comms with Frank – or his with Vauxhall – had been compromised, then no call I made was safe – and anyone or everyone could have been hunting me.

She braced herself and held her phone at the ready. Her voice steadied.

‘What else will Grumpy Jock ask me?’

‘Very little,’ I replied. ‘Except, perhaps, whether I’m still playing chess.’

‘What should I tell him?’ she asked.

I wrinkled my nose and sniffed the air, and decided – against a lifetime of experience to the contrary – to stick to the truth.

‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that I resigned.’

9

‘Passport, please.’

I handed the Eurostar security guard the junior doctor’s brand-new maroon passport. I yawned and looked down, covering my mouth as I did so. ‘Sorry,’ I apologized from behind my palm. ‘Late night.’

David Peter Mann was sixteen years younger than me, black-eyed and brown-haired, with a jaw square enough to play liar dice with. A grey beanie covered my head. A disposable razor had smoothed my chin. I pinched the sleep out of my blue eyes, feigning a hangover headache. While he scanned the photo page, I busied myself with the contents of my coat pocket.