I stood in the undergrowth and watched as he stepped out of his car. He was wearing a close-fitting red coat, white breeches, and leather boots. I remembered he liked hunting - he must have come straight from the chase. He walked round to the rear door and opened it. A dog leapt out: a black, white and tan dog with a long muzzle. The sound of its bark came like a shot, travelling across the drive and negotiating its way through the branches until it reached my ears, sending my brain a simple, stark message: I was done for.

They started for the house, Pritchard striding as though he were measuring out a distance, the hound zigzagging manic-ally around its master. As they passed, I caught the expression on Pritchard’s face. Perhaps it was a trick of the moonlight, or one of those odd extrapolations induced by proximity to extreme danger, but I could have sworn he was smiling.

This baffled me. What did he think he had been called here to discuss? Chief had said he hadn’t yet discussed the Slavin file with any of the others. At least, I thought he’d said that. If I’d misunderstood, I had no option but to kill Pritchard now. I thought of the old Service proverb: three people can keep a secret, as long as two of them are dead.

But killing Pritchard would mean an immediate murder inquiry.

As he took the stairs to the front door, I weighed the odds. It seemed clear that I should stay my hand and simply wait for him to leave, but the uncertainty of it nagged at me. It would have helped if I could have convinced myself I’d imagined his gleeful expression.

Then another thought occurred to me: could it simply be that, far from resenting having his Sunday evening interrupted - as I had, and as most people would - Pritchard relished the prospect of a late-night rendezvous with Chief? Was he simply aroused by the scent of intrigue? I didn’t have many dealings with Pritchard these days - I tried to avoid him as much as I could - but thinking back to the safe house in Sankt Gertrud, I decided it was quite possible.

He was ringing the doorbell now, rather forcefully - the car and the barking would normally have been enough to bring Chief to the door, so perhaps he was already wondering why they hadn’t.

‘Hallo? Anybody there?’ After he had called out a few times, he checked the door was locked, found it was, and so walked round to the window and tried to peer in, the dog following at his heels.