“You’re lying!” Berger said in a low voice, and suddenly ran away very fast.

They went after him. He reached the corner and made to cross Camden High Street on the run, head down, at the same moment as a double-decker bus approached. Collision was unavoidable and he was bounced into the air.

There was pandemonium as a crowd gathered and the driver of the bus dismounted in considerable distress. A police car pulled in and two officers got out and pushed through the crowd. One dropped to one knee beside Berger and examined him.

He looked up and said to his partner, “No good, he’s dead.”

There were expressions of shock from the crowd, and the wretched driver said, “It wasn’t my fault.”

Several people called, “He’s right, the man just ran into the road.”

At the back of the crowd, Dillon nodded to Blake. They walked back to the car and drove away.

The trip in the Citation had been uneventful. Hannah had kept herself-to-herself and as far away from Aaron and Moshe as possible. She accepted the coffee and sandwiches passed to her and leafed through a few magazines, a banal thing to do, but what else was there, except looking out of the window occasionally. Flying at thirty thousand feet with plenty of cloud below meant that she hadn’t the slightest idea where she was.

After three hours, there were glimpses of sea far below which could only be the Mediterranean. There was the coast of an island that could have been anywhere and then cloud again.

Moshe busied himself preparing more coffee and took some through to the pilots. Aaron ignored her, apparently deep in the book he’d been reading for the past three hours. Moshe returned and busied himself with refreshments again. He passed Aaron some sandwiches and coffee.

“The same for you, Chief Inspector?”

“No, just coffee.”

She peered out of the window again, catching a glimpse of another piece of land far below, and then the clouds blanketed everything. She turned to a tap on the shoulder and Moshe gave her the coffee.

As she drank it, she became aware of Aaron watching her as he sipped coffee himself, and there was a slight smile on his face, which of course irritated her.

“You find me amusing?”

“On the contrary, I think you are a very remarkable woman. Your grandfather a rabbi, father a great surgeon, a wealthy woman who goes to Cambridge, then joins the police and becomes a top Scotland Yard detective who is not afraid to kill when she has to. How many times? Is it two or three?”

God, how she hated him, and yet when she searched for the harsh reply, it wouldn’t come. He put down his cup in slow motion and reached for hers.

“I’ll take it, Chief Inspector,” he said. “You just lie back and go to sleep. We’re almost there, you see. Better for everyone if you don’t know where you are.”

The coffee. Too late, of course, far too late, and in the moment of realization she slipped into darkness.

In his flat at Cavendish Square, Ferguson sat by the fire and listened as Dillon and Blake Johnson filled him in between them. When they were finished, he sat there thinking about it, frowning.

“Strange, it all coming down at this stage to the de Brissac lawyer, this Michael Rocard.”

“Yes, but he’s managed the family affairs for years,” Dillon said. “If anyone would appear to be above suspicion, it would be he, and yet I suspect he must be the source of Marie’s true identity. He must have found out. Perhaps by accident.”

“Like we used to say in the FBI,” Blake told him, “if it’s murder, always check the family first. There is an interesting question here. Why would a man like Rocard, famous, part of the establishment, ever get involved with the Maccabees in the first place?”

Ferguson came to a decision. “I’m going to check him out.”

“Is that wise?” Dillon asked.

“Oh, yes. Conditions of the tightest security, man-to-man. I’m talking about Max Hernu.”

The French Secret Service had probably been more notorious than the KGB for years, and as the SDECE it had enjoyed a reputation for ruthless efficiency second to none. Under the Mitterand government it had been reorganized as the DGSE, which stood for Direction Générale de la Securité Extérieure.

It was still divided into five sections and numerous departments, and Section 5 was still Action Service, the department which had smashed the OAS in the old days and most illegal organizations since.

Colonel Max Hernu, who headed Section 5, had served as a paratrooper in Indochina, been taken prisoner at Dien Bien Phu, then afterwards fought a bitter and bloody war in Algiers, though not for the OAS that was supported by so many of his comrades, but for General Charles de Gaulle.

He was an elegant, distinguished-looking man with white hair, who at sixty-seven should have been retired, the only problem being that the French Prime Minister wouldn’t hear of it. He was sitting at his desk in DGSE’s headquarters in Boulevard Mortier, studying a report of ETA supporters living in France, when he took Ferguson’s call on the Codex line.

“My dear Charles.” There was genuine pleasure on his face. “It’s been too long. How are you?”

“Hanging in there, just like you,” Ferguson told him. “The Prime Minister won’t let me go.”

“A habit they have. Is this business or pleasure?”

“Let’s just say you owe me a favor and leave it at that.”

“Anything I can do, you know that, Charles.”

“You know the de Brissac family?”

“But of course. I knew the general well and his wife. Both, alas, dead now. There is a charming daughter, Marie, the present comtesse.”

“So I understand,” Ferguson said carefully. “The family lawyer, Michael Rocard. Anything you can tell me about him?”

Hernu was immediately alert. “Is there a problem here, Charles?”

“Not as such. His name has cropped up, let’s say, on the edge of an affair I’m involved in. I would be grateful for any information you have on the man.”

“Very well. Absolutely beyond reproach. Legion of Honour, a distinguished lawyer who has served some of the greatest French families. Accepted at every level in society.”

“Married?”

“He was, but his wife died some years ago. No children. She suffered poor health for years. She had a bad war.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Rocard is Jewish and so was the woman he would later marry. As children, they were handed over to the Nazis during the time the Vichy government was in power, together with their families and thousands of others. In their case, they ended up in Auschwitz concentration camp. I suppose they must have been fifteen or sixteen when the war finished. I believe Rocard was the only member of his family to survive. I’m not sure about his wife’s family.”

“Thank you,” Ferguson said. “Very interesting. Where’s he living these days?”

“I believe he still has an apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo. Look, Charles, I’ve known you long enough to tell when something’s going on.”

“Max, you couldn’t be more wrong,” Ferguson lied smoothly. “His name came up because he’d had legal dealings with an arms firm we’ve been worried about. Trade with Iran, that sort of thing. Nothing for you to worry your head about. I’d tell you if there was, you know that.”

“Charles, you’re lying through your teeth.”

“Leave it, Max,” Ferguson said. “If there is something you should know, I’ll tell you.”

“That bad?”

“I’m afraid so. I’d appreciate it if you faxed me his picture.”

“All right, but keep me informed.”

“The moment I can, I will, you have my word.”

“The word of an English gentleman,” Hernu laughed. “Now you really do have me worried,” and he switched off.

In the Oval Office, Jake Cazalet was trying to review a speech for a luncheon the following day to welcome a delegation of visiting Japanese politicians. It was difficult to concentrate in any way at all. It just went round and round in his head, the whole rotten business. He put down his pen and sat there brooding about it when the phone rang, the special Codex line, and he reached for it.