What Dempsey had not expected was that Shah’s investigation would go anywhere. After all, Quilty had discovered nothing himself when he had investigated the Tootkai incident. So to now hear that Shah had ‘big news’?

If he’s been making progress this whole time, all the better.

Dempsey slipped his pistol into the belt-mounted holster that had replaced the previous shoulder harness and indicated to the door.

‘Let’s go hear his news.’

The small meeting room was well-furnished. A sixty-inch flat-screen television was mounted on the wall. Positioned for the clearest view from any of the five mesh-backed office chairs that surrounded three sides of the room’s square, wooden-topped table.

A table which, when Dempsey and Grace entered the room, was already occupied by Jangi Shah. A tall, slim man with a gentle voice and delicate, manicured hands, he was dressed in a perfectly fitted tweed suit. No doubt expensive when first purchased, it had seen better days. Still, Shah wore it with a dignity that was at odds with the hell through which he had lived.

Everything about the man was unobtrusive and respectable.

The perfect spy, Dempsey thought.

‘You knew Thomas Quilty?’

Shah’s English was perfect. His mind sharp.

Dempsey spotted the test.

‘Well enough to know that only two people ever called him Thomas,’ Dempsey replied. ‘And that neither of them was you.’

Shah smiled sadly. It told Dempsey that he had given the right answer.

‘Sometimes the simplest questions reveal the most important truths,’ Shah said.

‘In what way?’

‘You are not the first man to come to me who claimed to know Quilty.’ Shah stopped for just a moment. ‘But you are the first who truly did.’

Dempsey saw the underlying message for what it was.

‘When was this? Do you know who they worked for? Did you tell them anything?’

‘The men came a month ago. I did not know who they worked for.’

‘Then that would have been Victor’s people. But what did you tell them?’

‘They did not know Quilty. That much was clear from their first words. And so I told them nothing.’

‘You didn’t tell them anything about Tootkai?’

‘Like I said. I told them nothing.’

‘Then . . .’ Dempsey hesitated. ‘Then Dale Victor really did know nothing. You didn’t tell them, and Quilty sure as hell didn’t. Which leaves no one else.’

‘I think that you are correct,’ Shah replied.

Dempsey thought back to the footage of Dale Victor.

What was it he’d said?

Dempsey closed his eyes, replaying the recording in his mind.

Things happen in war. Bad things. We’ll see what the president has to say about those things when the time comes.

‘He never mentioned anything specific,’ he confirmed. He opened his eyes as he spoke.

‘And he was not a man to hold on to a secret?’

‘He was not,’ Dempsey replied. ‘If Victor had known something, he’d have said it. No matter the consequences. He was just that way.’

‘So what was he doing?’ Grace asked. ‘If he didn’t know anything . . .’