‘Well, Sanders obviously didn’t know about him,’ Hepton said, his voice increasing by a decibel or two. ‘Besides which, I’ve been thinking over what Mike was saying in the car.’ At the sound of his name, Dreyfuss became attentive. ‘He was saying,’ Hepton continued, ‘that you seem to know a lot but aren’t prepared to do anything about it. It strikes me that he hit the nail firmly on the head. You know about Vitalis but don’t do anything about him; you know about the doorman at the Achilles but don’t do anything about him. And now you know almost everything there is to know about this COFFIN business: it’s to do with satellites, and Buchan airbase, and Major Villiers, and Harry, and General Esterhazy, and most probably my boss Fagin. But’ – he began to space his words for effect – ‘you’re not doing one damned thing about it.’ He paused, and noticed how loud his voice had become. Dreyfuss was smiling encouragement at him and applauded silently as he finished.

Farquharson didn’t like being shouted at. His cheekbones were veined with blood, his voice tremulous. ‘Well then, let me tell you a few things, Mr Hepton,’ he said. ‘We need proof, solid hard factual proof. Because RAF stations and tracking stations and their like are out of our jurisdiction. In fact, there’s precious little that isn’t out of our jurisdiction. The intelligence services have no formal powers. We have to work with Special Branch, and they’re not convinced so far by what we’ve told them. We can’t get Number Ten to listen to us, because frankly the PM has been got at by military advisors and MoD officials. Our agents in the field have found nothing, so there’s precious little we can do at this moment. Except wait.’

‘What?’ Hepton was yelling now. Yelling out all his fear and frustration, all the last few days of madness and murder. ‘Wait for them to pick us off? Look, whatever this COFFIN is, it’s been buried. How do we find something once it’s buried? We don’t. The longer we sit here, the more chance they’ve got of getting away with whatever it is they’re getting away with while we sit here!’

‘Bravo!’ Dreyfuss called. He was smiling grimly.

‘Who told you the coffin was buried?’ Parfit asked in a purposely quiet voice.

‘What?’ Hepton asked.

‘Who told you?’

‘Harry did. Well, sort of. She certainly didn’t deny it.’

‘And you believed her?’

‘Why would she lie? She was going to kill me.’

‘But she didn’t.’ Hepton began to see Parfit’s point. ‘Now answer me another question: why is the Zephyr ground station being temporarily decommissioned?’

Hepton pondered this. He gave up and shrugged his shoulders.