I’d slept very little, spending most of the night going through what had happened and getting to the bottom of the bottle. Now, as the dawn light fell on overturned chairs and shattered glass, I stripped and forced myself to work through the old fitness regimen. By the end of it, I was dripping in sweat and my mind was focused on the morning ahead. I had three objectives. Visit Station 12 and pick up my copy of the Slavin dossier - I didn’t want to have to explain why I hadn’t already received it. See if Chief’s file on Anna was in Registry - as a Head of Section I had full clearance, although one didn’t usually ask to see material related to Chief without a very good reason. I had several. But above all, I had to make sure I was sent out to Nigeria. I had no idea what else Slavin might have up his sleeve, and I needed to hear it before anyone else.

Resolved, I took a bath, shaved, and put on a fresh suit. After a scratch breakfast, I packed an old canvas hold-all with a few clothes and took the lift downstairs. I left a message for George to give the car the full treatment, outside and in. Then I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to Lambeth.

‘Gentlemen!’ William Osborne’s stentorian tones put a sudden stop to the murmuring around the table. ‘I think it’s time we settled down and got this show on the road, as our American friends like to say.’

He gave a slightly unconvincing chortle, and his waistcoat expanded in the process. Unblessed by the breeding or charm that had smoothed the waters for others, Osborne had clawed his way to becoming Head of Western Hemisphere Section by virtue of his prodigious intellect. A highly capable administrator, he had been widely expected to take over as Deputy Chief last year, but the job had instead gone to John Farraday, a smooth Foreign Office nob with no previous experience of the spy game but a penchant for hosting lavish dinner parties. Osborne had managed to isolate him within weeks, and nobody was in any doubt who really ran things when Chief was away. But he didn’t have the title, yet - and it was by no means a certainty that he’d get it.