‘All right, I’m sorry, Luke.’ He saw her hazel eyes blink open and she flashed him the sweetest smile. ‘That wasn’t fair. I should have given you more info before showing you that.’ She closed the lid of her laptop with a snap. ‘Let’s start again. So, what we’re looking at here is a network. London certainly think Janulis is our way in. In fact, they’ve given him a designated codename, so we’d better start using that from now on.’

‘Which is?’ said Luke.

‘It’s Earl Grey. Like the tea.’

‘Nice one.’ Luke laughed. ‘I’m liking the irony there. Who chose it?’

‘The computer did, at VX,’ she replied, using the Service abbreviation for Vauxhall Cross. ‘Come on, you know that’s how it works. So, what’s making our bosses think he’s our way into the network? Because of what he told me, back at the Ten Commandments Bar, last night. We had very little time to talk and he seemed extremely nervous. But he did tell me he’s involved with two underground societies very much at odds with each other.’

‘What kind of societies?’ Luke asked. ‘You mean cults?’

Jenny folded her bare arms across her chest and glanced towards the window, thinking and frowning. ‘Not exactly, no, I wouldn’t call them that. But here’s the thing. Janulis has a split persona. There’s his private life.’ She gestured at the closed laptop. ‘You saw a slice of it in there. And then there’s something else, some kind of network he’s part of, something altogether more sinister. And whatever that network is, he’s not happy being part of it. He wants out, he told me. Janulis’s English isn’t perfect, but he made it pretty clear he thinks they’re too extreme.’

‘Too extreme? Meaning what?’

Jenny’s eyebrows knitted as she thought. ‘I’m trying to remember his exact words. Something like: “They’ve done things to people, really bad things.” Yes, that was it.’

Luke got up from the table and went over to the hotel phone on the dressing-table. ‘Do you know what?’ he said, dialling Reception as he spoke. ‘I do need that coffee after all. Can I get you one too?’

‘Please.’

‘I have to admit,’ Luke said, sitting down at the little circular table, ‘I’m struggling to join the dots here. How is Janulis our entry point into this “extreme” network that he’s in such a hurry to get out of?’

Jenny leaned forward, her slim bare arms resting on the polished surface of the table, and spoke in almost a whisper: ‘Because, Luke, it was this “network” that organized the shipment of chemicals from Matulis ChemExport to Svalbard.’

‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s massive. And you found all this out in one conversation in the club last night? While I was busy being fitted up with some planted drugs?’