‘Well, I’m not normal, am I? Maybe I pushed him to it.’

‘Is that what he said?’

‘No. He was pathetic, rather than angry. But that always makes it worse.’ Julie nodded towards the Ladies in the corner. ‘What’s the deal with her? One minute she’s really engaging and good fun and the next she’s a monster.’

‘That might be a bit of an exaggeration.’

‘She told me she was investigating you.’ Kate frowned. ‘Yeah, exactly,’ Julie went on. ‘There’s nothing like actually announcing you’re the snake in the grass. She said she didn’t think Stuart was Viper and that she’d been given permission to open the investigation. She said she’d narrowed it down to a choice between you, me, Ian and Sir Alan. I replied that as career strategies went, I thought she was on to a guaranteed winner – all three of her bosses and one of her juniors. That should see her floating in the River Thames fairly soon.’

‘I think she might be getting carried away.’

‘She can really get in the way, that’s for sure.’

Suzy came back. They sat in awkward silence for a moment. ‘Have you been talking about me?’

‘Of course not,’ Julie said.

‘Is it true you’re having an affair with Ian Granger?’ Suzy asked.

Julie looked as if she’d been punched in the face.

Kate gasped. ‘I really don’t think—’

‘Given the work I need to do,’ Suzy said, ‘it would be better for me to know.’

‘This would be the investigation you’ve just been told to park by the leader of our organization?’ Kate asked.

‘It’s just that I heard he’d left his wife and was having a relationship with someone else in the organization. One of my colleagues thought it was Julie. I really feel that’s something I should be made aware of.’

‘Well, if you’re really desperate to know,’ Julie said, recovering some of her poise, if not shedding her anger, ‘then, yes, we had a brief affair. It was just sex. His marriage was breaking down anyway. He has now left his wife. We are not going to be together. Our relationship is over. Would you like to know what sexual positions we preferred?’ Suzy’s face was reddening. ‘Isn’t that the kind of information you find important at the Security Service?’

‘There’s no need to talk like that. It was a legitimate question.’

The food arrived, just in the nick of time, and conversation really flew along after that.

Kate was grateful to get back to her room. She brushed her teeth, took another double dose of zopiclone and crawled beneath the sheets. The last thing she recalled of that night was a message from Julie that said simply, What a bitch.

12

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Kate was awake early after a short, disturbed and not very restful sleep. She made herself a cup of tea from the kettle in the corner of the room and sat on the balcony outside with a thick oversized coat on her lap.