“There’s no trace of any incident involving a Rory Bannatyne and yourself in our records.”

“That may be the case. It was dealt with on an unofficial basis.”

“Rory Bannatyne was your man over on Ascension.”

“Yes.”

“He was your man in Oman, too.”

“We were working together, yes.”

“What were you doing paying fines to the Omani police?”

“I was averting an operational crisis.”

“Is this document real?”

“I’d need to check,” she said, hearing herself sound unconvincing.

He handed it over. She recognized the emblem of the Omani police—a dagger and two crossed swords: Royal Oman Police, Muscat Governorate HQ. Penalty Payment. 400 dinari ($1038 US). Then her signature. Her thoughts were, simultaneously, This is my time in MI 6 over and If I am responsible for a girl’s death, professional concerns are trivial and it’s ridiculous of me to care. But the question she wanted to ask, above all others, was Where did this come from? Who did this and why now? It would take digging, by someone who had access to personnel files. Senior-level access. Someone like Skinner. But still this was a lot of effort just to destroy her.

“Have you informed the police about this?” Mackenzie asked. “With regards to the current situation?”

“About GCHQ operations? No.”

“That he was a sex offender.”

“No.”

“You need to go back and inform New Scotland Yard. Then tell GCHQ to freeze any new activity on the island until this Petra Wade situation has resolved itself.” He took a deep breath. “It was ill conceived in the first place. That was my mistake—to give you the green light.”

“Freeze everything?”

“This is a potential disaster. The fallout if he killed her is unimaginable. The press wouldn’t stop digging until they knew what he was doing there. The island would be thrust into the spotlight. What is the situation now, with regards to the police investigation?”

“They’ve requested interviews with Rory Bannatyne’s colleagues, details of his career history. I’ve suggested we might coordinate via SO15, for security reasons. But there are a lot of question marks, and it’s an evolving situation.”

“And the Americans? What do they know?”

“Only the cover story, as far as I’m aware: that he was over there to consult on broadband.”

“This has potential to cause real damage in multiple directions. Suspend Ventriloquist with immediate effect and begin sharing relevant information about Rory Bannatyne with Security Branch. We’re going to have to contain this somehow, and that’s going to need cooperation.”

“This is Gabriel’s doing,” she said, gesturing at the Omani document. When Mackenzie didn’t respond, Taylor continued. “Why is he interfering?”

Mackenzie stared at her. “This is me,” he said, finally. “I’d like you to take care of all loose ends by the end of tomorrow, please. Then we’ll speak again.”