Most of the Swedish embassy’s senior staff had already left for the day when Valera walked in, and had to be urgently called back. All except the ambassador himself who, it was decided, would be better off not knowing about Valera until the Swedish security service, RPS/Säk, had worked out what to do with her.

The embassy was used to Russia dangling fake defectors at its front desk, promising the earth or begging for help. But they’d never seen anyone like Valera—someone who truly looked beaten down by despair but who refused to be defeated by it, and who spoke almost perfect Swedish.

However, it still took three hours of conversations and phone calls, including to the physics departments at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities, to establish that Valera was who she said she was, and another one to decide that instead of making her the ambassador’s problem, a seat should be found for her on the 10 p.m. SAS flight from Helsinki to Stockholm.

She’d been given twenty minutes to freshen herself up and change into a clean set of clothes kindly donated by one of the embassy secretaries. Then she was driven out to the airport.

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Knox knew trying to confront Manning had been a mistake. An amateurish, egotistical mistake. It was the kind of rash behaviour he’d drag a junior agent over the coals for. Manning wasn’t going to confess to being a double agent just because Knox wanted him to. And if Knox’s concerns about the security of the OECD conference and Operation Pipistrelle were as serious as he claimed, then Peterson was right and he should have taken the Italians’ papers straight to White. But he hadn’t. And he wasn’t going to.

Knox walked south, away from Fortnum’s, cutting through Green Park and then St James’s and down to the river. The hot night had turned into a muggy day, heavy with clouds. It was the kind of weather that reminded Londoners of pea-soupers and the Great Smog of 1952.

Knox needed to clear his head and stop letting his emotions and distrust of Manning get the better of him. He needed a more rational perspective.

He made his way east along Victoria Embankment. Opposite him the South Bank was still suffering its decade-long hangover from the Festival of Britain. Skylon, the slender spire that had been suspended over the riverbank as a vision of the nation’s bright tomorrow, was long gone. As was the grandiosely named Dome of Discovery that had been built next to it. The festival was supposed to be a beacon of hope and change, a celebration of a nation emerging from post-war austerity. And it had been, for the few months it was open.