‘He’ll get it too,’ says Walt, ignoring me. ‘Whatever they want, Congress will stump up. They’ll keep doing what they’re doing.’

I feel cold, suddenly. It feels as if a chill is rising up from the floor of the crypt: an icy miasma of pestilence and sickness. Suddenly I feel an urge to shiver; a queasiness in my gut. Beneath my clothes I can sense the hairs on my arms rising up like sails. I’d known that this was what Walt wanted to talk to me about but now I’m here, in his presence, I don’t want to hear it. He’s going to put something in front of me that is too much of a responsibility. He’s going to task me with doing something that is more about decency than duty and I know for a fact that I’m not going to have the strength of character to pick a side.

‘They have their own intelligence services, Walt,’ I say, as if explaining it to a child. ‘They know precisely what they’re supporting. They know what the military is doing and they don’t care. It’s the price they pay to stop the Communists getting another foothold in Central America. They have to work hand in hand with bad people.’

He looks at me as if I’ve sorely disappointed him. He was my boss, once. I don’t know what he really is at this moment in time. He’s an asset and he’s very well-informed but he’s not officially MI6, for all that he seems to know far more about world events than I ever do. He seems to think that I’m cut from the same cloth as he is – that I’m more interested in doing the right thing than that which is politically expedient. Such an approach has derailed a stellar career. After fourteen years in the intelligence services, my own star is continuing to rise, albeit irredeemably tarnished by my deeply selfish decision to take a year off to have the twins in ’72. I keep hearing the voice of common sense prattling away on my shoulder, telling me that I shouldn’t be here, that I’ve only come because I feel like I owe a favour to an old friend.

‘Is that our excuse too? We have to work with the Americans because of our … what did we call it? Ah yes, the “special relationship”. Yes. I once watched a terrier rape a squirrel in one of Her Majesty’s parks. Held it down and properly gave it a seeing to. Held its neck and walked away afterwards with a proper strut in his step. I always return to that mental image when I think upon the special relationship we have with our friends across the Atlantic.’

I pull a face. ‘How long were you watching for?’