“This is fantasy,” Anne told the monk again. “Look, I’ve told you everything there is to know. The whole bloody operation. I’m not holding anything back. But for me, the deputy director of MI5 would probably be suspended pending an investigation. Wouldn’t he? It’s only because of me that you know anything at all. But for me, you’d be in the dark about all this.”

No one spoke. Anne looked furtive now, even a little desperate. The trouble was that everyone believed her lie, which meant she could hardly contradict mine without compromising her own.

“Why on earth would I hold something back now?” she said. “It makes absolutely no sense. He’s making this up to try and make me look bad in your eyes and to save his own skin. That much is obvious.”

“Anne French is telling you she doesn’t know this man’s name,” I said. “But I have to tell you now that she and I have had more than one lengthy conversation about him. While we were in bed. So I’m afraid she’s lying when she tells you she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”

“What? That’s a load of crap,” said Anne.

“Is it?” I asked smugly. “Look, the last time I saw her I had absolutely no sense that she was experiencing any crisis of conscience about her actions. None at all. She was cool and very collected. If I’d had even half an idea that she was going to betray Hennig and me I’d have put a bullet in her head without a moment’s hesitation.” I frowned and wagged a finger in her direction. “When last I met with Anne French all of her questions were about Sir John Sinclair and MI6, not MI5. Was it possible that proving that Roger Hollis was a Russian spy would help to put our man in the clear again? That kind of thing.”

“Tell me you’re not going to believe any of this Fascist bastard’s nonsense,” said Anne.

“I don’t know,” confessed the monk. “Really I don’t. It’s a most intriguing picture you paint, Herr Gunther. It is as if you really do have the names of two men who have spied for the Soviet Union in MI6. Do you? I wonder.”

“Look,” said Anne, “it’s perfectly obvious he’s just going to give you the name of Sir John Sinclair or Patrick Reilly. Or that other queer who was at the hotel. The art curator. Blunt. He’s bluffing you, like this was a game of bridge. There is no Soviet agent in MI6, I tell you. At least none that we know of.”