I do not tell her that the testing involved me being doorstepped by KGB zombies. Or articulate just how little faith I put in the DRESDEN RICE coffin-dodgers who are half of team alpha. For now, it’s enough for her to know that “home” is a Victorian mid-terrace owned by the Crown Estates and leased to approved personnel at a rent affordable on a civil service salary (otherwise we wouldn’t be able to staff our offices in central London). With additional security and wards provided by our own Facilities Management Unit, just in case work comes calling, or we need to take files home that must be protected from the depredations of random burglars.

“We’ve got a spare bedroom you can use.” (Actually, we’ve got two spare bedrooms: it’s a family-sized house with no family to fill it.) “And if our Mr. X is trying to rub you out, the last place they’ll look is under the roof of the guy they set up to kill you. Now, your own apartment is another matter . . .”

I don’t need to remind her about Evan. She swallows, and nods. “Are you sure your wife won’t mind?”

“She’ll mind any number of things,” I tell her. “She’ll mind if you smoke in the bathroom, she’ll mind tripping over your suitcase in the front hall, and she’ll mind if you don’t buy your own groceries or keep clogging up the washing machine—but she won’t mind you, if you follow? As long as you’re a co-worker and it’s just for a day or two. Until we neutralize the threat.”

If the threat is an insider, it’s quite likely that they’ve got access to the PHANGs’ personnel files. It’d explain how they got to Evan. The alpha group worked this out. So they offered the PHANGs a choice of the duty officer’s accommodation (a lumpy bunk bed in an office next to the staff canteen), a cheap room in a Travelodge, or relocation to the Village Formerly Known as Dunwich (where we maintain a whole bunch of training facilities, and which has rather good security against intruders).

However. I have a nasty, sneaky, suspicious mind, and I am aware of the possibility that our PHANG-killer might not only be an insider, but that they might be on the inside of the Senior Auditor’s tent, pissing in the communal punch. And “under Bob’s roof” is the very last place that anyone with access to her personnel file will expect to find her lurking. So I am minded to conduct a controlled experiment. I don’t think Mhari is suicidally inclined, so during a coffee break an hour into proceedings I propose this arrangement to her. And because she’s neither suicidally inclined nor any less paranoid than I am, she agrees . . . on condition she can tell the Senior Auditor where she’ll be bunking, first.