‘Perhaps your Section could look into the Slavin dossier,’ Pritchard said to Quiney. ‘See if your contacts in Germany can get a list of all the patients admitted to this Red Cross hospital in 1945.’ He was talking to Quiney, but he was looking at me.

‘Yes,’ I said, meeting his gaze. ‘Good idea. Perhaps you could also collate all the files of British military operations in the area at the time. I seem to remember there was some sort of a base in Gaggenau.’

Pritchard’s mouth locked tight. I’d put forward a way of implicating him, but it was precisely what the other version of me, the patriotic British agent who had never gone near any Russian nurses, would have done. I’d have suspected Pritchard for the same reason he now suspected me: I knew he had been in the British Zone in ’45.

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Quiney. ‘Though I can’t imagine many of those records have been kept.’ Good old Quiney - you could always rely on him not to do anything in a pinch.

‘I would like to go out to Lagos and interview Slavin,’ I said. ‘It’s been five days since he approached us, so time is of the essence - his colleagues could realize he’s thinking of defecting at any moment and then we’d have lost any chance to find out what’s really going on here. Henry has already as much as admitted that Lagos Station isn’t up to the job, and I have a personal interest in making sure a thorough job is done. This operation of my father’s occurred after he was last seen in London, so it obviously could provide an explanation for whatever happened to him.’ I avoided looking at Pritchard, because he knew I was lying at this point.

‘Perhaps Chief killed him,’ murmured Farraday, at which Osborne’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

‘Killed him?’ he said. ‘Please, John, let’s try to keep the discussion sane. Chief’s hardly a killer.’

‘You have a point,’ Farraday replied, nudging the photostat forward on the table. ‘He last didn’t kill someone twenty-four years ago, to be precise.’

Another silence descended, and people started shifting in their seats. This was a new side to Farraday, and no one knew what might be coming next.