Somersby, Wycombe and Miss Jenna were all very clear in pointing the finger at Frederick being the mastermind behind it all. He had killed his boss, Thatcher, when he started digging into Tenebris. And he had been the one to shoot Y. Y. – Peter Yan – really was a waiter at the Phoenix Palace restaurant. He had never worked for the Chinese Embassy. Frederick had just paid him to tell me information about Peng that the Chinese People’s Alliance had discovered from one of their sources. Yan was the disposable face of an inside man. Frederick killed him when he needed to make it look like he was the leak who had told Tenebris about the Dictaphone. He was just another pawn in the carefully constructed game Frederick had set up. I wondered if his plan was always to abandon Camilla and his kids. To leave them behind so he could enjoy his riches abroad without fear of capture.

I wanted to do more to find Frederick.

The sighting at Elstree Aerodrome wasn’t him. Having analysed the CCTV both at Elstree and at Avignon where the plane landed, it was clear it couldn’t have been him. There was a facial similarity but no one could fake being six inches shorter than their recorded height.

I tried voicing my concerns with Jake and Cameron. Cameron was going to stay on for a few weeks to help us work through all the data from the Tenebris server. We were in the meeting room, waiting for Hattie to arrive back from Heathrow. Peng and the delegation had taken off and were now safely en route to Beijing. Peng may still be at risk from the Chinese People’s Alliance, who had ordered the hit on her, but at least it would be harder for them to get her back in China. Peng’s safety was no longer part of our remit – that responsibility was, as it should be, back with her own country. I hoped they looked after her. Everything she had achieved was admirable and I believed her when she said she still had so much more to do.

‘Come on, Tyler. Cheer up,’ said Jake. ‘Today was a good day. Robin is still alive. Only just but he’s going to make it – I know he will. Peng is officially no longer our problem. We’ve just crushed a multi-million-pound underworld recruitment website, saved the Security Services, and two greedy, self-serving city boys are headed for the Box.’

‘Frederick is still out there.’

‘He’ll be out of the country by now. He’ll be lying low, thinking of a way to get to the BVIs and his stash of precious paintings.’

‘Jake’s right,’ said Cameron. ‘Frederick will know it’s crazy to hang round here with a pack of Rats on the hunt for him.’

The lockdown had officially ended. Platform Eight was now back up and running.

‘Wow. You and Jake agreeing. That’s new.’