He almost ran into his room and pulled open the drawer of the small side table where he’d left his speech. It was no longer there. After searching the room, he realized that the KGB were now in possession of the advance copy they’d been so keen to get their hands on.

He checked his watch again. Forty minutes before the conference opened, when he would be expected to deliver a speech he’d spent the last month working on, but no longer had a copy of.

When ten chimes rang out in Red Square, Harry was shaking like a schoolboy who had an appointment with his headmaster to discuss an essay that existed only in his head. He’d been left with no choice but to test out just how good his memory was.

He walked slowly back downstairs, aware how an actor must feel moments before the curtain is due to rise, and joined a stream of delegates making their way to the conference center. On entering the ballroom, all he wanted to do was go straight back to his room and lock himself in. Bookshelves of chattering authors were even more intimidating than advancing Germans.

Several delegates were searching for seats in a room that was already packed. But as instructed by Bouchard, Harry made his way to the front and took his place at the end of the second row. As he glanced around the vast hall, his eyes settled on a group of expressionless, heavily built men wearing long black coats, standing with their backs against the wall, evenly spaced around the room. They had one other thing in common: none of them looked as if they’d ever read a book in their lives.

Bouchard was coming to the end of his opening address when he caught Harry’s eye and gave him a warm smile.

“And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” he said. “An address by our distinguished colleague from England, the writer of nine highly successful crime novels featuring Detective Sergeant William Warwick. I only wish that my own French counterpart, Inspector Benoît, was half as popular. Perhaps we are about to find out why?”

After the laughter had died down, Bouchard continued: “It is my honor to invite Harry Clifton, the president of English PEN, to address the conference.”

Harry made his way slowly up to the platform, surprised by the flashing bulbs of so many photographers surrounding the stage, while at the same time his every step was dogged by a stalking television crew.

He shook hands with Bouchard before taking his place behind the lectern. He took a deep breath and looked up to face the firing squad.

“Mr. President,” he began, “allow me to start by thanking you for your kind words, but I should warn you that I will not be speaking today about either Detective Sergeant William Warwick, or Inspector Benoît, but about a man who is not a fictional character, but flesh and blood, like every one of us in this room. A man who is unable to attend this conference today, because he is locked up far away in the Siberian gulag. His crime? Writing a book. I am of course referring to that martyr, and I use the word advisedly, Anatoly Babakov.”