The building that loomed above him had just one distinguishing feature – a green neon sign that simply said ‘Policija’. Other than that, it was a bleak, blank façade. And there, dimly visible above the neon through the falling sleet, was another detail he noticed that worried him: CCTV cameras, all turned away to one side instead of covering the entrance doorway. So there would be no record, he realized, of who was being brought into the building at this hour of the night.

Luke winced silently as they marched him up the steps into the rear of the building, forcing his arms into a painful position. To take his mind off the pain, he ran through a rapid checklist in his head. Who could have set him up like this? Who had they encountered so far? Who, apart from a select few people in the agencies in London, even knew they were in the country and what they were up to? It came down to a shortlist of two: that Neanderthal sales director at the factory this morning and his unctuous in-house lawyer, Darius Janulis. Whoever it was, someone clearly didn’t want them here in Lithuania.

It was an old Soviet-era building, with peeling interior walls painted an institutional shade of green. A large gilt-edged portrait of a square-jawed, unsmiling man in braided uniform with purple lapels hung high on the wall, but other than that the entrance hall was devoid of decoration. In silence they led Luke down a corridor before they stopped abruptly at a closed door. One of the police escorts knocked twice, a gruff voice answered, and Luke, flanked by the same leather-jacketed officers who had arrested him in the club, went in.

It looked to Luke like some kind of office, which was vaguely reassuring – for a while back there he had wondered if they might be heading for the woods. He could see there was only one other person in the room and he was sitting behind a large desk, his bulky frame half turned away from them as he spoke on the phone. The man, evidently someone in authority, twisted round in his chair to squint up at them, just long enough for Luke to see a heavily lined face with thinning hair, then turned back to finish his call. There was a full ashtray in front of him, Luke noted, which would account for the lingering presence of cigarette smoke in the room, and a framed photograph of someone in a camouflage jacket holding up a large fish.