‘The story was only in the papers for a few days, and they used my father’s name, Campbell. Knox is my grandmother’s name. But James still found it in the pre-war records. He knew the Service would never trust me if anyone else discovered what my parents had done. So he let my secret stay hidden.’

‘What does this have to do with last Sunday night?’ Sarah asked.

‘It was the anniversary.’

Knox had learned not to hate his parents. But he still couldn’t forgive them. Every year he marked their deaths and honoured the memories of the police officers they’d killed.

‘And if you’d told the inquiry that,’ Sarah said, ‘they’d have found out everything and James would have been drummed out of the Service before he could defend himself.’

Knox nodded. The secret wasn’t even Holland’s, but he’d kept it. And the simple act of not exposing Knox would have damned him.

‘And you’d become a scapegoat, blamed for the sins of your parents and anything else the Service felt like pinning on you.’

Knox nodded again. ‘It would have been the end of both our careers. He’s protected me for so long, I have to do the same for him.’

‘Then what’s changed now?’

Knox had come this far; there was no point holding anything else back. He told her about everything that had happened since she’d found Holland’s body on the rug between them a week ago. He told her about Manning’s rapid consolidation of power, about the sidelining of White at a time when he was most needed, and about the attacks on him in London and Stockholm.

Sarah was as shrewd as her husband at his best. She probed Knox, testing him to prove every connection and leap he’d made. And by the end of her grilling she agreed with Knox’s conclusions: that Manning was most likely a Soviet agent and responsible for Holland’s coma.

‘That bastard,’ she said. ‘I want you to stop him. And I want him to pay.’

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Knox left Wytchen House and headed for Highgate tube station and the Northern Line back into town. But instead of changing onto the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road to meet Bennett, he made his way up to street level. He knew it was a risk to go back to Kemp House so soon after the fire, but he wanted to see just how much damage had been done, and if anything had managed to survive the inferno.

He took a circuitous route through Soho, dropping down Charing Cross Road and cutting along Old Compton Street before turning into Walker’s Court at the southern end of Berwick Street.