‘What are you talking about?’

‘Murder, kidnapping, treason,’ Knox said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear.

The crowd fell silent, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly focused on Knox and Manning.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Manning said. ‘But let’s discuss whatever you think is happening somewhere more private.’ He gave the room a reassuring smile.

‘I’m happy right where I am,’ Knox replied.

Manning snapped his head back to Knox, his smile gone. ‘That wasn’t a request.’

‘I don’t take orders from you,’ Knox shot back.

Manning leaned in closer to Knox, lowering his voice. ‘What’s happened to you, man?’

‘Your men happened to me.’

‘My men? You’re not making any sense.’

‘Or maybe they were yours,’ Knox said to Finney.

‘Excuse me?’ Finney replied, looking as confused as Manning had been when he’d first spotted Knox.

‘You heard me,’ Knox replied.

‘That’s enough,’ Manning said to Knox. ‘I won’t have you embarrassing the Service like this.’ Then he turned to Finney and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll deal with this and be back shortly.’

‘No way,’ Finney replied. ‘I want to know what I’ve done. I’m coming with you.’

Manning glanced at the room and all the faces that were still turned towards them.

‘Fine,’ he said. Then he started to march towards the door.

Knox didn’t want to lose his audience, but Manning wasn’t giving him a choice. At least he now had a room full of witnesses who had seen him confront Manning. The crowd kept watching as Manning stepped around the waiter, who was still clearing up the broken glasses, and left the ballroom. Then they watched Knox and Bennett follow him, with Finney taking up the rear of the little procession. And they kept watching as the group crossed the landing and disappeared through a pair of large wooden doors on the other side of the staircase.

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

The four of them found themselves in an exhibition hall. If any of them had been paying attention they’d have noticed that they were surrounded by architectural models of new buildings planned for London. They’d walked into the future. There were scale reproductions of skyscrapers, bridges, and public spaces and, in the centre of the room, a rendering of the Barbican, the enormous brutalist complex planned for the hole in the city Knox had stumbled through the night before when he was being chased across the city by a ghost.

‘Now, what the hell is going on, Richard?’ Manning demanded once the doors had closed and he could hear the murmur of conversations starting up again behind them.

‘Stop playing the fool. You know exactly what’s going on,’ Knox replied.

‘I assure you I have no idea.’

Knox’s anger intensified with every denial Manning made.