I paused. How could I possibly explain to these people, even in abstract terms, the ups and downs of my journey with Communism, from my tentative steps with Anna to my convert’s zeal after her death - or staged death, as it now appeared - through to agonizing doubts and resulting confrontations with Yuri, and later Sasha, over everything from documents I didn’t want to hand over to, yes, tanks rolling into Prague. I decided I couldn’t, so I concentrated on my cigarette and waited to see if they had any more idiotic questions. But they didn’t - they all seemed to have gone rather quiet.

‘Thank you, Paul,’ said Osborne. ‘Most illuminating, and some food for thought for us all. I’m not sure what it is you think we did wrong in Kenya, exactly, but perhaps that’s for another day.’ He gave a slight nod to Farraday to indicate he was closing the issue. ‘Perhaps you can tell us more about this woman who seems to be involved - Grigorieva? Do you have anything on her?’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘there is something.’ I took my briefcase from the floor and placed it on the table. ‘I had a look around Registry this morning and found this in “Germany 1945”. I think it confirms that Slavin is very unlikely to be a plant.’

I’d read all of Father’s files several times - I’d had to, for cover. But Sacrosanct had been off the books, so they hadn’t contained anything about that. I hadn’t known he had asked Chief to take Anna into custody, though, or that Chief had written a report about the incident. Along with his other military records, it had been carried over to his Service file, and once I’d found the relevant bundle it had been easy to locate. I sprang the briefcase open, took out the photostats I’d made, and passed them round.

‘As you can see, this is extracted from the monthly reports that Chief wrote in September 1945, when he was head of the British army headquarters in Lübeck in Germany. If you turn to the top of the third page’ - I waited for people to do so - ‘you’ll see the entry headed “Anna Maleva”. Chief - or Brigadier Colin Templeton, as he then was - relates how he had been tipped off by SOE officer Lawrence Dark - my father - that Maleva, a nurse in the Red Cross hospital in Lübeck, was in fact a KGB agent. Chief took a small team to her quarters to detain her on the night of the 28th, but when they arrived she was dead, shot through the chest.’

A police car raced through the street below, its siren blaring, and I let it pass before continuing.