‘You want me to repeat the same story?’

‘If you would, Miss Demidova,’ Julie said. ‘Tess Winkelman is not an intelligence officer. We really need to hear it first-hand.’

‘What can you do for me?’

Julie glanced at Kate. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Asylum, if it comes to that. If I need it.’

‘Agreed,’ Kate said.

Natasha looked taken aback. ‘You will need higher authority—’

‘This unit was set up by the prime minister personally, and given all necessary measures. You have our word.’

Natasha stubbed out her cigarette and tapped painted nails on the table. Her hands, like the rest of her, were precisely manicured.

‘Is asylum what you want?’ Kate asked.

‘I don’t know what I want,’ Natasha said, keen, suddenly, to get down to business. ‘Let’s just see it as an insurance policy. As you know, my role here is a cover. I am a mid-ranking SVR officer and I think you would best describe me as a protégée of Igor Borodin.’

‘In what sense?’

‘He made a point when he was chief of seeking out attractive young women for rapid promotion, at a price most of us were too young and naive to refuse.’ Her bitterness, or anger, was almost palpable. ‘I consequently spent more time than I should have in Moscow, paying that price flat on my back, but my reward was a position in Special Unit 61a, which reported directly to Igor himself.’

‘Why 61a?’

‘It was the office next to his suite on the top floor of the SVR building.’

‘How many people worked there?’

‘Perhaps forty or fifty, including support staff. Its work was highly secretive, with rigid boundaries between each section. I was brought in to work on Operation Alexander, which is what you have come to discuss, and which had, by then, been in the planning for some considerable time.’

‘How long?’

‘I joined the unit in 2015 and worked there for three years. I didn’t have access to all the original case files, but I got the impression that the work dated back five years or more. Some of the people in my section were on long-term secondment to the unit.’

Kate considered again the convenient way information appeared to come to her in choreographed patterns. No sooner had Julie told her about the SIS Moscow station chief’s new agent Incisor and his allegations of a special unit run by Igor Borodin than here, apparently, was independent confirmation. Was this a window on the truth, finally, or just another turn of the misinformation dial?

‘Although it was never discussed – indeed, it was expressly forbidden to talk about anything at all with other members of the unit, or even socialize with them – I had the impression that everyone in 61a was working on material that originated from or involved Agent Dante at the heart of MI6 in London.’

‘Did the unit still report to Igor Borodin after he retired as head of the SVR?’

‘Yes, primarily, though I think he and Durov worked together on it. Vasily was Igor’s close ally anyway, so the truth is Igor never really retired. He became like a chairman, running the best and most sensitive material and leaving the hard grind to his successor.’