"Last n—" He stops dead. "What happened last night?"

I glance at the Sitrep folder. "Panin isn't in the UK, according to that folder. So how exactly is it that he picked me up as I was leaving work and bought me a pint of ESB in the Frog and Tourettes?"

"Preposterous." Choudhury glares. Neither Shona nor Iris is smiling.

"You'd better explain," Iris tells me.

"What I said. Here is a hint: Panin knew. He tried to pump me about Teapot, so I played dumb. He knows the rules; left me a calling card. It's downstairs in the Security Office safe. For reasons of operational security I didn't report the contact immediately, but I'm reporting it now. The Plumbers should be able to confirm it from the pub CCTV." I sit up. "Personally, I find the implications highly suggestive."

"Why did you not tell Security—" Shona stops, her eyes widening.

"We're not as secure as we'd like to be. I'd rather not spread it around beyond this committee for the time being."

Iris's brows furrow. "You're taking rather a lot on your shoulders, aren't you?"

"I'm only doing what Angleton would advise."

Choudhury has spent the past thirty seconds or so looking hurt and offended. Now he collects his dignity: "This can't possibly be right—Oversight don't get their movement reports wrong. Perhaps you were taken in by an impostor? I assure you, you didn't see Panin last night—he was in Madrid."

I am getting tired of this shit. "According to your Sitrep he was sighted in Madrid at four p.m.," I point out. "That's plenty of time to catch a flight into London City and accost me outside the front door at a quarter past eight. If you had bothered to check the duty rota behind that sighting"—gosh, I didn't know he could turn that shade of pink!—"you'd know that the Madrid office files their report at five, local time, which is sixteen hundred hours on British Summer Time, and they go home at six. And if you got out from behind your desk once in a while you'd know that the Madrid office consists of two cotton tops and their pet chihuahua, whose job is to take whatever the Guardia Civil feeds them and barf it over the wire on demand, rather than actually running surveillance boxes on visiting opposition controllers. Like I said: the pub CCTV—not to mention the MAGINOT BLUE STARS network and Panin's mobile phone company's logfiles—will back me up on this. I'm right, you're wrong, and I would appreciate it if you'd stop acting like a complete prat and pay attention."

I find that during my little rant I must have stood up: I'm leaning over the table, balanced on my fists, and Choudhury is leaning over backwards in his chair, not balanced in the slightest. "This is harassment!" he splutters. "Intimidation!"