Next door, things weren’t going so well. Pete Pascoe, a Cornishman, was letting his temper get the better of him. His reddish hair and moustache hinted at his Celtic origins: he could be a fiery devil and needed to watch himself.

His interrogator seemed to have realised this. ‘Your family,’ he said. ‘Your brother’s how old?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘And he’s a mechanic?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What’s his address?’

‘Twenty-eight . . . twenty-eight Northcourt Avenue, Reading.’

‘That’s where you said your sister lives.’

‘It is. She does. Simon lodges with her.’

‘He’s not married, then?’

‘No.’

‘But she is?’

‘Of course. I told you.’

‘And her married name?’

‘Jenkins.’ Suddenly Pete’s patience ran out. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he snapped. ‘We’ve been through all this before. Have you got nothing better to ask?’

‘Just checking,’ said the detective smoothly. On the monitor I could see Pete’s nostrils working in and out – a sure sign that he was getting steamed up. Beside me, one of the supervisors made a grimace and wrote something on his notepad.

I watched for a while longer, but then I thought, To hell with this. It was amusing to see the guys getting grilled, but I decided the time could be better spent: we still had a long way to go in preparing for our Russian trip, and not many days in which to get everything done.

I looked at my watch: 9.35. The exercise had gone on long enough. That sort of thing’s OK if there’s no big deal in prospect, but we had a hell of a team job to tackle. What we should all have been doing was learning Russian, not pissing about with cover stories in pissy Ashford. It was time we went back to Hereford and got stuck into our final training.

A guy from Spetznaz, the Russian special forces unit, was due in on Monday, coming to have a look at our set-up and give us advice on kit. On Thursday our advance party would fly to Balashika, the base outside Moscow, to suss out the accommodation and facilities, with the main party following within two weeks.

I slipped out of the control room and found Jock Morrison. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘do we have to go through with this?’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I want to stop it. For one thing, they’ve only caught three of our guys. I’m through, and I know Rick Ellis is too – I saw him boarding a train. I bet the other three are clear as well. And anyway, we’ve got more important things to do than sit around here playing games.’

‘Well . . .’ Jock looked doubtful. ‘It’s not my decision.’

‘I know. It’s down to me. Tell you what – we’ll give it another hour and see how things are going then. I’m going to call the Feathers and find out who’s made it.’