Kearney had been waiting for her to ask this. He found the pocket drive he had taken from Tate, weighed it in his hand for a moment then put it on the table between them, where it lay gleaming softly in the coloured light, a nicely designed object not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Titanium has a look to it, he thought. Today’s popular metal. He said:

“Take this. If I don’t come back, get it to Sony. Tell them it’s from Tate and they’ll know what to do with it.”

“But that stuff,” she said. “That stuff is in there.”

“I don’t think it has anything to do with the data,” Kearney said. “I think Tate is wrong about that. I think it’s me this thing wants, and I think it’s the same thing that’s wanted me all along. It’s just found a new way of talking to me.”

She shook her head and pushed the drive back towards him.

“I’m not letting you go anyway,” she said. “Where can you go? What can you do?”

Kearney kissed her and smiled at her.

“There are some things I can still try,” he said. “I’ve saved them until last.”

“But—”

He slid back his stool and got up.

“Anna, I can get out of this. Will you help me?” She opened her mouth to speak, but he touched her lips with his fingers. “Will you just go home and keep this thing safe and wait for me? Please? I’ll be back in the morning, I promise.”

She glanced up at him, her eyes hard and bright, then away again. She reached out and touched the pocket drive, then put it quickly inside her coat. She shook her head, as if she had tried everything and was now consigning him to the world. “All right,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

Kearney felt an enormous relief.

He left the bar and took a cab to Heathrow, where he booked himself on the first available flight to New York.