Wada suspected she looked more like a maid than one of the guests, who clearly came from worlds very different from hers. Sitting in the Art Deco bar with a cocktail she regretted ordering because it was far too sweet, she tried to concentrate on the bubbling chatter around her as a distraction from why she was there and what she was going to do in the morning. But she remained undistracted.

To her surprise, she slept well and was woken by the beeping of the alarm on her phone. The day had come, cool and bright, with showers of rain that cast their shadows over the bathroom mirror as she looked at herself and wondered if the person she saw was equal to the task ahead. There was a gauntness to her features she was sure hadn’t been there when she left Tokyo a couple of weeks ago. She wasn’t the same Wada. But maybe, considering what lay ahead, that was a good thing.

Quartizon’s offices were only a few minutes’ walk from Claridge’s. When she reached Berkeley Square, she called Driscoll, who answered instantly.

‘I am about to go in,’ she said simply.

‘Very well. I’ll await your report.’

‘Are you close by, Driscoll-san?’

‘That would be telling.’

‘Do you have any last advice?’

‘Be yourself. Putting on any kind of act for Nishizaki is a waste of effort. Fortunately, though …’

‘What?’

‘I don’t think you can be anyone but yourself.’

The offices were at the Berkeley Square end of Bruton Place: a four-storey house converted into stylishly fashioned business premises. The brushed steel plaque by the door, featuring the embossed letter Q, was identical to the one at Quartizon’s Reykjavík address.

The door opened as she approached. An impassive porter admitted her to a reception area that would have looked sleek and spacious but for the number of people trundling sack-trucks piled with documents away.

‘Are you Wada?’ the porter asked. He was Asian, but not, Wada suspected, Japanese. Korean, maybe.

‘I am Wada.’

‘Passport?’

She showed it to him. He nodded in satisfaction. ‘I have to search you. I can call a female colleague if you wish.’

‘That will not be necessary.’

He nodded again and picked his way meticulously through the contents of her shoulder bag, which did not include the Emergence memory stick, securely stowed in Claridge’s safe. Then he patted her down, thoroughly but with cool detachment. ‘You can go up,’ he said. ‘Floor two.’

The lift rose slowly through the building. The doors opened on to a short corridor that led to double dark-wood doors. A large shaven-headed Asian man so wide-shouldered it looked as if he had left the hanger in his jacket was standing in front of them, arms folded across his chest. He inclined his head and whispered into a lapel microphone, then pulled open one of the doors to let her proceed.