‘But the Russians might have been thinking far enough ahead to put Sergei in exactly that position for exactly that reason and instructed him not to make contact with you.’

‘It’s possible.’ Kate didn’t want to think about the level of complicity and premeditation that implied on Sergei’s part. But perhaps that was her blind spot.

Grove was silent for a long time. ‘What do you think Ian’s motivation is?’ she asked finally.

‘If he’s Dante, then it’s naturally to cover his tracks. And framing me allows him to do that. If he isn’t Dante, I guess he’s hedging his bets. “Proving” that I betrayed the prime minister all along would allow him to curry favour in the event the PM survives Imogen’s attempt to get him out of Number Ten.’

‘Which he will.’

‘Maybe.’

‘He’s a born survivor.’

‘No one survives in politics for ever, though, do they?’

Kate filled in Grove on what had happened in Prague. She didn’t want any more of a post-mortem with Callum for a whole load of reasons, so she got out of the car early, saying she had to head home. Instead, she took a taxi to Imogen’s house to pursue an idea she’d been toying with during the flight home.

It was late by the time she got there and the night and the weather had closed in, the rain billowing down the street in successive gusts of wind. So it was a moment before she identified the man scurrying out of the entrance to a waiting Mercedes.

But as she stepped back into the shadow of the taxi to avoid being seen, she caught a glimpse of Ian Granger, his face damp with rain.

24

KATE WAITED UNTIL Ian’s car headlights had disappeared around the corner before she knocked on Imogen’s door. A young woman with the brusque pretension to grandeur that marked out so many political advisers answered. ‘Yes?’ she asked, with barely concealed disdain, as if she had just discovered dog excrement on the heel of her shoe. She was blonde and pretty with oval glasses.

Kate disliked her instantly. ‘I’m a friend of Imogen’s.’

‘Are you from the Mail?’

Kate smiled. ‘No, I am not from the Mail.’

‘The Sun?’

‘I am not from any newspaper. My name is Kate Henderson.’

‘Wait here,’ the girl said imperiously, and closed the door in her face.

‘How to win friends and influence people,’ Kate muttered under her breath, as she turned back to the street. There was no sign of any waiting press.

The minutes crawled past and Kate was about to call a taxi and go home when the door opened behind her again. ‘Come in,’ the girl said, without explanation or apology for her attitude or the delay. ‘We had a couple of journalists trying to blag their way in earlier,’ she said.

Imogen was at the kitchen table with half a dozen men and women sitting around her, poring over charts of names. Her husband Harry was the first to greet her. ‘Kate!’ He came over and gave her a polite peck on the cheeks. The fact that Kate’s husband and Harry’s wife had once had an affair might have brought them together, but seemed only to have pushed them apart. Harry rarely exuded the easy geniality of their first acquaintance, these days, and politely kept his distance.