I shivered, using the motion to disguise my attempts to tug at the bonds. They were expertly tied. I wasn’t getting out of here unless he released me.

‘This is how you treat the people you like?’

He smiled, genuinely pleased with me. ‘It is, yes! And I don’t expect you to understand it or condone it and I certainly don’t imagine that after the curtailment of this night’s activities that you will be inviting me to any social engagements. But I do hope that somewhere in the distant future you realize how much it pains me to see you in this position, and that you perhaps feel a whiff of gratitude that I spared you the alternative.’

I opened my mouth wider, feeling the bruise on my jawbone bloom with pain. ‘The alternative?’

‘There are people who believe you are more trouble than you are worth,’ he said, spreading his hands apologetically. ‘They see no reason to spare you and have only indulged my mercy out of their dedication to the cause.’

He sounded strange; an eerie kind of apostolic zeal entering his voice. It sounded as though he was speaking for the benefit of a rapt congregation rather than to me.

‘The whispers were right, then?’ I asked, my voice croaky, throat dry. ‘You’re a Soviet?’

He reeled back as if slapped. Screwed up his face in utter confusion. ‘A Soviet?’

‘A communist,’ I said, feeling lost. ‘The other side.’

He put his head in his palm, taking a moment to gather himself. ‘Oh Cordelia, have I really misjudged you so completely? A Soviet? A KGB infiltrator? That’s the only motivation of which you can conceive? Good Lord, girl, how tremendously parochial you have become. Have I left it too long, I wonder? Perhaps the young firebrand of whom I thought so highly has already been transformed by the Whitehall machine. Have I really wasted time and resources on nostalgia?’

I couldn’t face swallowing again with my throat in such pain, so I coughed the blood and spat into the darkness. I put all of my anger into the glare that I fixed upon him, even as my mind replayed his words looking for any indication as to his agenda.

‘So who are you working for?’ I asked. ‘What’s this all for? Who’s the enemy, who are your friends? What is it you’re here to do and why the hell am I involved?’