Bennett was about to gesture at him to move on when he raised his hand and gave her a small wave. Not sure how else to respond, she waved back. Then he turned his hand and made a subtle beckoning motion, raising his other one too to show he wasn’t hiding anything. Bennett was confused but intrigued.

She quickly searched her room for something she could use to defend herself in case this was a trick and the stranger waiting for her outside had been sent to finish the job the man in Hyde Park had failed to. The only things she could find were a small hardback edition of Our Man in Havana and her house keys. She left the book on her bed, bunched her keys in her fist, and headed downstairs.

Outside, the street lamps were starting to turn on. Bennett pulled her front door to and stepped down onto the pavement. But she didn’t cross the road.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘I know a friend of yours,’ White replied, trying not to shout. ‘Richard Knox.’

‘How do you know him?’

‘We work together at Avalon Logistics.’

Bennett relaxed her fist slightly. Knox had told her about MI5’s Avalon Logistics cover, and that she could trust anyone who used it.

White took the opportunity to cross over to her side of the street—he didn’t want all the residents of Neville Street to hear what he was about to tell Bennett.

‘Are you the famous Malcolm White?’ she asked as he stepped between the parked cars in front of her.

‘Apparently my reputation precedes me,’ he replied. ‘I had a rather troubling conversation with Richard this morning. He asked me to look into a few things, and let him know if I found anything odd. As he’s somewhat indisposed at present, I thought it best to find you.’

‘And you found something odd in Leconfield House?’

‘Plenty of odd things have been happening there recently, but one in particular stood out.’ He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small piece of paper, and handed it to Bennett. ‘Two days ago a dormant MI5 safe house was reactivated. No staff were requisitioned, no operation attached to it, just the power switched back on. I thought you might want to take a look.’

Bennett looked at the address. It was a street somewhere in south London. Suddenly she had the chance to do more than just disappear or wait for whatever fate Finney or one of his lackeys wanted to inflict on her.

‘I’ll need a car if I’m going on a stake-out,’ she said.

White pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. ‘The green Anglia at the end of the street. And my home and private office numbers are on the back of the address if you find anything interesting there.’

Bennett took the keys. ‘Can I at least give you a lift home?’