Hepton stood for a moment, wondering how Parfit could take it all so rationally, so calmly. Then, aware that he was alone now, he made a dash for the door and followed the cool secret serviceman to Dreyfuss’ room.

Dreyfuss was quiet during the short drive towards Westminster Bridge. Hepton sat with him in the back, while Parfit sat with the driver in the front. Parfit had a briefcase on his lap; in it was a cellnet-style telephone, with which he made a steady stream of calls. The driver paid no attention to these, busying himself with the heavy, slow-moving traffic instead. His style of driving was the antithesis of Sanders’: careful, methodical, courteous. All the same, the traffic being what it was – and London drivers being what they were – he had to fall into the shunting rhythm of the cars around him, slamming the brakes on, pulling away fast, then slamming them on again. Each jolt seemed to make Dreyfuss wince. Hepton saw that he was holding his right arm with his good left hand, trying to steady it against unwanted motion.

‘You should have that in a sling,’ he observed. But Dreyfuss did not reply. Parfit, hearing Hepton and glancing in the rear-view mirror, saw the sheen of sweat on Dreyfuss’ forehead, indicative of continuing pain.

‘Take some more tablets,’ he ordered.

‘I’m fed up with being doped,’ Dreyfuss said through bared teeth. ‘I’d rather have pain and all my faculties intact than being in that bloody stupor all the time.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Parfit made another call.

Dreyfuss turned to Hepton.

‘First Jilly. Now Cam. We’re letting these people get away with murder.’ He nodded his head towards the passenger seat. ‘He’s not going to do anything about it. Not if it involves scandal. He’s paid to cover things up, not let them get into the open.’ Dreyfuss’ voice was becoming conspicuously loud, but Parfit made a show of not listening. ‘If we’re going to do anything, Martin, it’s got to be you and me.’ His eyes, the pupils tiny pinpoints, were boring into Hepton’s. ‘You and me.’

‘Yes,’ Parfit commented, ‘you’ve done so well on your own, haven’t you?’

Dreyfuss made a face at him behind his back, then winked at Hepton. ‘You and me,’ he mouthed noiselessly, before sitting back and watching from his window.

Hepton watched from his window too, but he wasn’t really seeing anything. He was thinking over what Dreyfuss had said; that, and a lot more besides …

32

Blake Farquharson was waiting for them in Parfit’s office. Hepton had expected that their destination would be Whitehall and the Foreign Office. But in fact they had travelled south, past the Houses of Parliament, over Westminster Bridge and into Westminster Bridge Road. Their destination was a large office block, where passes once more had to be issued before they headed up in the lift towards Parfit’s floor.