‘No need for you to do either,’ replied Manning. ‘The only person who should be apologising is Knox.’

‘I’m not the one who ordered the abduction of a foreign national and the killing of a KGB directorate chief,’ Knox replied, trying to land another couple of blows on Manning. ‘Have your masters in the Lubyanka realised that was you yet? Or were you following their orders?’

Manning looked stunned. ‘You’ve actually gone mad, haven’t you?’ he said.

‘I was there. We were in Stockholm. We saw your men put a bullet through his head and kidnap Valera.’

Manning was silent for a long moment. He dropped his gaze down onto the model of the Barbican, but he wasn’t really seeing it. He was thinking about what Knox had just said. His hands reached into his pockets, then he looked back up at Knox. ‘What were you doing in another country?’

‘I was taking a leaf out of your book,’ he said.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Manning asked, his restraint wearing thin.

‘Remember Singapore? Don’t pretend Kuznetsov wasn’t killed because of you,’ Knox said. ‘When did Russia turn you, anyway? Was that your big initiation, or were you already a good little mole by then?’

Now it was Manning who couldn’t contain his anger. ‘My mission to Singapore was a sanctioned operation within British sovereign territory. I have no idea what you’ve got yourself into, but if you were involved in the death of a KGB agent on foreign soil then you’ll have dragged MI5 into an international incident that could have disastrous consequences for the whole country.’

There was more emotion in this single outburst than Knox had ever seen from Manning. He was sure he was close to cracking.

‘Christ, man,’ Manning continued, ‘we’ve got leaders from eighteen countries in the city. The Russians are begging for a reason to launch an ICBM at us.’

‘And you’d probably tell them exactly where to aim the missile, wouldn’t you?’ Knox fired back immediately.

‘This is insanity. Spouting wild accusations, running around with some mad secretary chasing conspiracies—’

‘A secretary,’ Finney cut in, ‘who will be on the next plane back to the States.’

‘I’m not a secretary,’ Bennett snapped again. ‘And will I be on the same plane back as the scientist you’ve got coming to question Valera?’ She saw a flicker in Finney’s eyes—she’d hit a nerve. ‘There’s no other reason for someone from NASA to be flown over here.’

‘The whole of NATO is meeting in one place, Khrushchev’s boasting he can take out any of our capitals with the push of a button, and you think there’s no reason for one of our top scientists to fly in?’ Finney asked. ‘Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are,’ he added.