‘Are you telling me he is under surveillance every minute?’

‘There was a glitch on Saturday night with the local police.’

‘Great.’

‘If this is the sum total of what you came to talk about, then I can only say that I’ve done what I can for you. You know what you need to know to protect yourself, so stay aware. What you did with that blog wasn’t smart.’ She has her car keys in her hand, and steps past me, on her way out.

I grab her arm, twist her around so fast she nearly loses her balance. ‘What?’

‘Don’t try that again.’ A normal person would hiss this. In Maxine’s flat register the words are chilling.

‘What do you mean about the blog?’

‘It’s been deleted. Milly will have received an official-seeming message that the domain has expired. I warned you two years ago you couldn’t make contact with your old life. Do you think your coded messages to Milly are going to achieve anything other than fucking with her head? Not to mention your own?’

‘You had no right.’ I feel as if I have lost Milly all over again. ‘You’re not God.’

‘We had every right. It’s the deal you made.’

‘No I didn’t.’ I straighten my slumped shoulders. ‘I never made any deal with you. Do you know what happened to me at the weekend? The man I was with could have been killed.’

‘Is that why you came today? Because of this man? George, isn’t it?’

‘Isn’t it?’ I practically snort. ‘You know it is. Partly that’s why I came, yes.’

‘I suggest then that you believe exactly what he told you. A man from your gym. A business analyst or solutions consultant.’

I realise George has probably told her that I asked him to search for information about Frederick Veliko. ‘Why is he spying on me?’

‘Keeping an eye. Protecting. Though it seems you protected him on Saturday night.’

‘You reject me from MI5 because you think I’d sleep with someone for the role, but you promote others for doing exactly that.’

‘That is never part of any plan. It’s not supposed to happen. Not sanctioned.’

I shake my head. ‘You’ve been keeping things from me from the start. Asking me to help you but not giving me enough information to do it.’

‘I’ve given you as much as you need.’

‘Why didn’t you simply tell me that Jane had been murdered? Why drag me to that house to make me look at her?’

‘I needed to impress on you the seriousness of what we are dealing with.’

‘Do you think I didn’t already know that?’

‘Look. It boils down to this. I thought you had a right to know. I thought you were owed that much. I owed you that much.’