‘Who is she?’ he asked. ‘And who are you?’

‘I’m Abey Bennett, CIA. And that is Irina Valera. She is, or was, one of the Soviet Union’s most promising physicists. She disappeared in Leningrad three years ago, and no one has seen or heard of her since. Until she walked into the Swedish embassy in Helsinki yesterday afternoon.’

Knox looked at the photo again. ‘Very interesting, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.’ He took another, larger gulp of the coffee and briefly wondered about finding some food before his gut confirmed it wasn’t ready for that just yet.

‘Before she disappeared, Miss Valera was working on manipulating radio waves. The same kind of manipulation your dead Italians were working on’—she took her own sip of coffee for dramatic effect—‘and that Mr White is so fond of.’

Knox slowly lowered his cup. He’d been happy to entertain Bennett, whoever she was, while he woke up and got his head straight. The photo of the woman meant nothing to him, and she could easily have learned Bianchi and Moretti’s names from Kaspar just by waiting for him to return to his office after his encounter with Knox. But her knowing who White was and about Operation Pipistrelle told Knox two things. First, she was a bona fide member of the intelligence community. And second, one of MI5’s most closely guarded secrets was out. He needed to tread very carefully for the next few minutes and find out exactly what she knew.

‘Bianchi and Moretti were just a couple of opportunists,’ he said, giving her MI5’s de facto official line.

‘Maybe they were. But they were killed because of their work.’

‘That’s supposition.’

‘This is all supposition,’ she replied, a smirk on her lips. ‘That’s what spies do. We suppose.’

Knox had to give her that. ‘The investigation into Bianchi and Moretti is no longer active.’

‘Your behaviour suggests otherwise,’ she said.

Knox wondered how much she really knew, and how much she was fishing. He’d stored the crate from the Italians’ flat in his bedroom wardrobe after he’d found Peterson rifling through its contents. And she definitely couldn’t know about the new papers he’d found in Deptford, unless everything she’d told him was a lie and she was working for the people who had come after him under Trafalgar Square. But he doubted it. However, he also doubted that she wasn’t above having given the rest of his flat a quick once-over while he was still asleep.

‘MI5’s interest in them has ended,’ he said.

‘Which makes sense, if someone’s trying to cover their ass,’ Bennett replied. ‘You’re not the only one who thinks there’s a wolf in your henhouse.’