Holm pushed the phone away. ‘I’m done with this, Farakh. Taher is strictly off-limits, remember? If you’re worried home-grown extremism might have spread to football fans then you should have a word with Huxtable. She’ll find somebody to look into it for you.’

‘The Spider? No, I don’t think you understand and she certainly wouldn’t.’ Javed shoved the phone back towards Holm. He was agitated, upset almost. ‘Take a look at the username.’

Holm peered at the screen again, more to placate Javed than with any real interest. ‘It’s a bunch of letters and numbers. Makes no sense.’

‘TCXGP1505. The digits. Do they mean anything to you?’

‘1505?’ Holm laughed. ‘The fifteenth of May. Coincidentally, it’s my birthday.’

‘Now take the letters. It’s a simple rotation cipher. Shifted by two. Child’s play.’

‘TCXGP.’ Holm did the decoding in his head and as he did so a chill spread across the back of his hands. ‘RAVEN.’

‘Which is?’

‘MI5’s code name for Taher.’ Despite the warm sun Holm shivered. A smidgeon of nausea began to rise from his stomach. ‘Christ.’

‘Your birthday and a code name supposedly known only to the security services sent in a social media message to me.’ Javed took the phone back. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as just a little bit odd?’

Chapter Eight

Silva went to the Costa on the high street opposite the agency. She bought a cup of coffee and a muffin and sat at a window seat. Milligan was inside because she’d seen him come to a window and peer out nervously. This wasn’t the Neil Milligan her mother had told her stories about. In his time as a front-line journalist he’d covered wars, famines and natural disasters. He’d been shot in the leg in the Balkans, captured by Angolan rebels in Africa and faced trial in Singapore for refusing to reveal a source. He’d won awards for his work. Silva concluded he’d either lost it or had a genuine reason to be frightened. Considering what had happened to her at the weir, she was inclined to think the latter and that wasn’t comforting. She turned her head and scanned the cafe. Milligan’s paranoia was infectious.

When she’d eaten the muffin and finished the coffee, she drummed her fingers on the table for a couple of minutes. She’d planned to wait for Milligan to emerge so she could try to talk to him again, but now, having seen him at the window, she came to the conclusion he wasn’t going to open up to her.