He looked at her with some sadness in his eyes. Not pity, she thought. Please, not pity.

“Okay.”

“I spoke up for you. To keep you in the service. Give you a second chance.”

“I know.”

“You’re making me wonder if that was wise.”

Taylor returned to her office. She felt she was already fired, that her status had evaporated in an instant and she may as well pack up her personal possessions and leave. How would she phrase it to Bower? How could she break the news that his dream had collapsed? There’s been a complication. It’s me, my life. That would be her farewell to the immense power of GCHQ. Power that seemed wedded to the world’s future, and thereby to her own, to an aggressive kind of progress.

She picked up the phone. Call Bower. Tell him it’s off. She dialed. He wasn’t at his desk, which felt like a temporary reprieve. She left a message.

“Dominic, it’s Kathryn. We’ve had some major hiccups at this end, and I need to speak to you asap.”

Hiccups, for Christ’s sake. Kudus appeared, holding his laptop.

“You okay?”

She tried to think what to say. He saw her expression and frowned.

“Got a minute?”

“Why?”

“Look.”

He showed her the laptop screen. It contained a photograph of Kane: Kane in a T-shirt with the unmistakable black rocks of Ascension behind him. He held a pair of sunglasses. There was a small rucksack at his feet. The picture was clearly taken without his knowledge, from a distance, going on the basis of the quality. Someone had been waiting for him to remove the shades. They wanted his face.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was sent to a facial recognition company called Percepta Biometrics a couple of hours ago. We keep tabs on them—they’re used by a lot of interesting players, some less reputable than others. Because I put out an in-house alert on Edward Pearce, including Kane’s face, this got picked up, passed through to me.”

“Any idea who sent it to the company?”

“No.”

“Do we have a client list for Percepta Biometrics?”

“No client list. We’re in their bank accounts, but that’s a heavy trawl.”

Her phone flashed: Bower calling back.

“Did Percepta get a result?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kudus said. “There’s no other images of him in their database that I can see. I can’t find another image of Elliot out there under his own name. He has no social media. Any search is going to be directed to the Edward Pearce front.”

“Get me data for this company: phone numbers, email addresses, anything.”

“It’s here.” He passed over a sheet with the relevant information, including the encryption technology they were using. She lifted the phone.

“Dominic.”

“Kathryn, you said there was a problem.”