He went to the sofa and chairs in the corner and motioned Kate to sit. He tapped his tortoiseshell reading glasses against his knee, his hands weathered from the hours he spent in the garden at his country home just north of Winchester. ‘How was Stuart?’ he asked.

‘He burst into tears when he was alone with the kids.’

‘I’m not surprised. A lifetime in Moscow probably wasn’t what he had in mind.’

‘He says they’re treating him like a pariah.’

‘Perhaps, but I doubt it.’

Kate had only a moment to consider this before Ian Granger burst in, as was his habit these days. He’d always liked to stage an entrance. ‘Aghamo mshvidobisa,’ he said. Even by the standards of the service, he had a gift for languages and liked to remind everyone of this by peppering routine conversations with different greetings – in this case, Georgian.

‘I fear this is not going to be good news.’ He crossed his legs to reveal a brand new pair of suede Chelsea boots that matched the designer black jeans he had recently taken to wearing to the office. He now eschewed Savile Row tailoring, the qualities of which had once been one of his standard dinner-party riffs, and rarely seemed to bother with a haircut either, his long blond curls tumbling over the collars of his Ted Baker shirts. Sir Alan was much too aloof to notice Ian’s cry for mid-life attention.

‘Coffee, tea?’ Sir Alan asked.

‘Not at this hour,’ Ian said. He’d discovered ‘wellness’ lately and told anyone who would listen it was ‘dangerous’ to drink caffeine past noon.

‘Something stronger?’

Ian was about to decline, but then had second thoughts. ‘Well, if you’re offering.’

Sir Alan went to a cupboard in the corner, took out a bottle of Glenfiddich and poured three glasses. He didn’t ask Kate whether she wanted ice or water.

Ian didn’t wait for Sir Alan to take his seat before turning to Kate. ‘Give us your worst,’ he said, with what he considered his megawatt smile.

Kate tried not to let her irritation show. ‘Mikhail Borodin and his father, Igor, want to defect. Mikhail says that Igor and Vasily Durov have been the victims of a coup in Moscow Centre, orchestrated by the GRU. He says that both men are under house arrest already. He’s offering the video he says was used as kompromat to force the prime minister to work for them, along with evidence of the cash payments made to him over the years.’

‘Do I dare ask what the video shows?’ Ian said.

‘He claims it’s of James Ryan having sex with underage girls while he was an army officer in Kosovo. I asked to see it, but he said he would only show it to us once we accept his offer in principle.’

‘What do they want?’ Sir Alan asked.

‘Residence here, passports – and a guarantee they’ll be able to use the assets they have stored in the West. They also want to ensure freedom of movement throughout Europe and America. I said that wasn’t in our gift.’