‘Well, your description of him was spot on. You know you said you thought he had some kind of military background? He was in the Royal Marines until not too long ago. A major, to boot. Pretty high up. There was a fight on Brown Mountain – at least I think that’s what it was called. Anyway, somewhere on South Georgia. Villiers led his men into what turned out to be a trap. A lot of them were killed. It was hushed up here, of course. Bad for morale.’ Jilly was warming to her story, and as she continued, she pushed a little harder on the accelerator. ‘Villiers seems to have snapped. He’d seen plenty of action. Oman in the fifties, Belfast in the sixties and seventies. But something happened to him in the Falklands. After he saw his men die, he just couldn’t stop killing the enemy, and when the enemy were dead, he turned on his own men. Kill crazy, they call it. Apparently it happens sometimes.’

‘Christ,’ said Hepton quietly.

‘He was a good soldier, too.’ Jilly slammed her foot on the brake as a red light loomed. She idled the car and turned towards Hepton. ‘They had psychiatrists on him from the minute he landed back home. He seemed normal enough by then, but nobody was taking any chances. Bad for public relations, having a killer in your midst.’

‘So they pensioned him off?’

‘One of the disabled. They even gave him a medal, I forget which. It’s in my notes.’

The car started off again, turning left at the lights.

‘And the government hired him?’

‘Well, yes, in a way. The Foreign Office gave him a job. His actual title is pretty vague, but he knows his stuff: countries, political climate, that sort of thing. God only knows why it had to be him you saw when you visited the FO.’

‘Because,’ said Hepton, ‘he’d been expecting me.’ His voice was level. ‘He’d figured out, you see, that I was curious and that my curiosity would probably lead to Mike Dreyfuss.’

‘But how could he know?’

‘He’s a cunning little bastard. Cunning enough to string us along, because he doesn’t know we know about him. That’s our big card. Meantime, he’ll probably want to know just how much I know.’

‘What about this Harry, though? She just wants you dead, period. Isn’t she working for Villiers then?’