I debriefed quickly, leaving nothing out but embellishing nothing either. He didn’t say anything, didn’t react at all, even when I’d finished. He seemed to be more interested in the activity on the river: there were a couple of tankers moving silently about their business.

‘Did you hear me?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘The only thing,’ I corrected. ‘There wasn’t anything right about it.’

He turned away from the river to look at me, and smiled thinly. He placed his palm on my shoulder, a pastiche of avuncular affection. ‘I understand your distress,’ he said, and it was all I could do to stop myself reaching for the gun again. ‘That is something I can’t help you with. You must look in your soul and examine the reasons things were done in this way. In time—’

‘What do you know about Slavin?’ I asked him. I didn’t have any time - that was the bloody point.

‘Slavin?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You remember - the KGB officer whose defection is threatening my life.’

‘Only what you have just told me: that he is attached to the Soviet Embassy in Lagos. Considering the strategic importance of Africa, and Nigeria in particular, I imagine he is regarded highly by Moscow. But that is all I know, I’m afraid - that and I count my blessings that my services are required here, surrounded by beauty and art, whereas Comrade Slavin has the ill fortune of being posted to one of the world’s most inhospitable cities during wartime.’

I looked over at the dirty black river and wondered about Sasha’s definition of beauty.

‘Forgive me if I don’t share your sympathy for him,’ I said.

‘Oh, don’t be so self-pitying, Paul! You have enjoyed more than your share of luck tonight. You weren’t spotted by Henry Pritchard, for example. Although, of course,’ he added, ‘you will now have to be especially wary of him.’

Yes. Yes, I would. ‘The control, at one remove from the action, may be able to offer the agent fresh insight into problems he faces in the field.’ It was from the Service manual, but I imagined Moscow had some similar gibberish printed up. I resisted the urge to tell him that it had already occurred to me that I might now have to be especially wary of Pritchard.

‘Still, I don’t think there’s any need for you to worry yourself unduly,’ Sasha was saying. ‘Slavin will be dispatched tomorrow.’ He gave a short chuckle.

I told him that nobody was going to lay a finger on Slavin, and after he had recovered from the savagery with which I had spat this out, he politely asked me why not. He even managed a sliver of bewildered amusement in his tone - I didn’t like that. I wanted him scared.

‘Volkov,’ I said. ‘It’ll look too much like it.’