“Every word nothing but the truth, Jules.” She brought an unlit cigarette to her lips and scowled. “Do you not have one meeting room I can fucking smoke in?”

“Kay, what happened?” She’d told the police that when White came beating at her door she’d locked herself in the bathroom with a kitchen knife, and without her phone. She’d heard what sounded like all hell breaking loose in the next room. Then eventually she’d responded to the cautious calls of Royce’s people and come out to find the scene of devastation.

“That happened.” She gestured to the transcript Julian had in front of him. “Just like that.”

“Kay, when White arrived, there was someone already with you,” Julian pointed out. “Now either you let them in or they forced their way in, but—”

“I swear, I was alone when my door was kicked in,” Khan insisted fiercely. “Unless someone was hiding in the broom cupboard. You think that’s likely, Jules? Cos I do not.”

“Two people died—”

“You think I did it? Or you think I keep a, what, a bodyguard? A super-jealous boyfriend? A…gorilla?” Khan’s voice broke. “Jules, there were dead bodies in my house. And I’m going to have to go back there and…”

“Kay, why did you want to speak to me?”

“Why didn’t you want to speak to me?” Khan raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You thought the great queer was attention seeking, is that it?”

“I thought there were proper channels.” But he knew she was right, at least a little. “Here I am, Kay. Talk to me.”

“I was approached.”

Julian went still. “But not by White?”

“No, but just as this White business was kicking off online. I was approached by a woman in a bar. Only instead of wanting to try out a new kink, she said her employers wanted to speak to me. Wanted my professional opinion on something. Very important, very hush-hush. She was dressed like a moody goth, but she looked like she’d been forced into it at gunpoint. She looked…feral.” Oddly, she smiled. “And yes, obviously, I can do a full description. I can even do you a sketch if you want, for what it’s worth. No contact details were given. Said she’d find me. Spy stuff, Julie. Pure spy shit. She knew who I was, though. She was talking about CITS. Which is such a terrible acronym that it only appears in classified reports. The reports that only get read by you people and nobody else should be able to even get hold of them. Not unless they’ve cracked CITS already and need people like me because they’re winding up to do something with it.”

Cryptic Informational Transformation Space, supplied Julian’s memory helpfully. It was what Khan had been working on at the government laboratory. He was still none the wiser about what it meant.