But it wasn’t him that Charles and Honeysette were watching, it was someone else: a very big man with thin ginger hair who was following at a distance of only a couple of paces, and yet seemed somehow alone. He wore a drab grey suit, and there was something strangely transparent about him as he slipped between people, as if he could disappear right in front of you. They all entered a small area divided from the rest of the room by silk ropes.

‘That’s Fellowman, isn’t it?’ said Nick.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Honeysette replied, thoughtfully. ‘Shall we go over and I’ll see if I can catch his eye?’

‘Yes, let’s.’

We walked through the throng. Comrade Fellowman was whispering in Burgess’s ear as we arrived, before stepping back to instruct a couple of junior assistants. ‘Ian,’ Honeysette called over. Fellowman glanced at him. ‘May I introduce a few friends of mine. This is Comrade Nick Cawson and his wife, Jane.’ He was about to speak again, but it was just then that a man appeared on the stage, tapped the microphone twice to make sure it was on and spoke, his voice distorted by the wires and speakers.

‘Comrades. It is my great honour tonight to welcome some very special guests,’ he said. ‘First, our colleagues in the struggle for democratic Socialism from the Russian league of Communism International.’ Clapping resounded around the room as we all turned to a group of ten men standing near the stage. I felt a hot flush and sweat forming on my brow, my stomach clenching. ‘And also to the Secretary of State Information, Comrade Burgess.’

Burgess raised his hand to louder clapping, which died out as the speaker returned to the microphone. I saw Charles grin widely at me. But then something different passed over his face. Something like shock. It was reflected in the faces of all the men immediately around me. They were looking down to the floor at my feet. A few paces away, Lorelei seemed to have frozen in the act of clapping, her hands resting in mid-air as she too stared at the floor below me. Nick’s eyes rose, wide, to mine. Then there was a bolt of searing pain through my whole body, and I felt the glass slip from my fingers. It shattered on wood stained with droplets of wet blood, the shards exploding across the polished surface.

‘Christ,’ someone said.

11