I supposed by this time Bracken would have started worrying. Extension 7 would have reported no signal at eight-fifteen, nine-fifteen, ten-fifteen, so forth. I wondered when he'd tell London. Shapiro gone, Quiller gone, not really their day. The red lamp over the board for Scorpion would still be on, but one day they'd have to switch it off. That man who'd been on the stool would reach up and flick the lever and go on sucking on his bloody chewing-gum, and Tilson would go padding quietly back to the Caff in his plaid slippers and bury his face in a cup of tea. We got this from the Foreign Office just now. DI6 have located Q in one of the Potma complex camps, no trial, twenty years. Better put out the light.

'We're getting into philosophy,' I told Vader. 'If I decide to go the whole way, rather than let down my friend, that's what I'll finish up doing.'

For a few seconds we watched each other across the table; then he leaned back, tilting the chair under him. 'As you know, intelligence agents hold a certain degree of — what shall we say? — sympathy for one another. Especially for their opposite numbers. A grudging regard, m'm? That's understandable, surely — we share the same kind of experience. So I'm inclined to put myself in your place, at the moment, because I've actually been there, once or twice.' He looked up at me apologetically — 'Though I have to admit that I was never in your exact predicament. What I want you to understand is that I dislike the idea of your having to submit to indignities, even though you may choose to let it happen. I really do dislike it very much.' He leaned forward again, and spoke earnestly. 'I'd see myself there, in your place That is why I'm offering you this chance of doing all the talking around a table. You see?'

He really wanted an answer.

`Of course,' I said. 'I'd feel the same way myself.'

`I'm sure.' He smoothed the surface of the table 'I'm quite sure.' Like the walls and the door, the table was green, with the wood grain showing through in places, especially where the long narrow striations had formed. 'Also,' he said, 'I want you to know that I'm a family man. I have a charming wife and two pretty daughters, ten and twelve years old. With red hair — did you guess?' He threw back his head and laughed about this. 'So you see, underneath the uniform there's just an ordinary man like yourself, with very human instincts. This is another reason why I hope you'll save us both a lot of misery. Surely you understand?'

'Yes,' I said, 'I understand.'

'Then let's make afresh start.' He tilted his head in curiosity. 'Who are you?'

This was the first phase.

'Who are you?' he screamed and brought the flat of his hand crashing against the table. 'Who are you?'

'I can't tell you!' The chair toppled and hit the floor as I got up and faced him: his rage had got me on to my feet because he was towering over me and I thought he might lash out and I had to be ready — in this mood he could half kill me if I let him.

'Your identity! Your identity ! I demand to know your identity !’ The amber eyes burned in his face.

This was the second phase and I'd been expecting it because it was a classic procedure and he'd been so bloody cosy the first time that I knew he was going to do this the next time we met, but it still took some handling because his rage wasn't spurious: he wasn't a man who liked being blocked.

`Are you English?' His hand hit the table again. 'Are you from London? Answer me!' The table was rocking. I moved away from it, wary. He'd be strong and fast and well trained and I didn't know his breaking point, the point when he'd lose his control — he was working for Mother Russia and for Mother Russia he'd smash a million Englishmen against the wall.

'Answer me !'

The blood had left my face: I could feel it. It had gone to the muscles and the adrenalin was ready: the organism was triggered and what I had to do now was watch him, watch his every move in case he lost control and wanted blood for the sake of blood.

'Tell me who you are! Tell me!'

His wide leather belt came off so fast I was into a knife stance but he brought it down across the flat top of the table with a sound that cracked through the confines of the small bare room and I reacted: the edge of my hand was lined up with the carotid nerve of his neck and the mental rehearsal was already over and the hand was ready to lift and strike with the accuracy of an automaton.

'You were carrying false papers and you were following one of our citizens and you tried to avoid arrest and now you refuse to explain your actions!' He took two paces towards me and I sank an inch lower, solidifying the stance. 'Do you know how many years that would get you in a forced labour camp? Do you?'

I would let him take one more step. If I let him come closer than that he could do some damage. The element of surprise was on his side: when you don't know when the opponent is going to attack there's no real problem — you just have to wait; but when you don't know if he's going to attack it can be very difficult because you're liable to let the hairspring off the hook and get to him first and it might not be necessary. I didn't want to break his clavicle or paralyse him by going in too fast: they wouldn't like me for that.

He started shouting again, bringing the belt cracking down for emphasis, stopping to glare at me with his eyes narrowed to slits and his teeth bared. 'How do we know what harm you might not be planning against our country? How do we know what appalling danger you might not be placing our citizens in? This man you were following — did you intend to kill him? Did you?'

The belt snaked down and left another weal across the top of the table. The sweat was bright on his face under the white light, trickling to the edge of his collar. He was following the prescribed routine but he also believed in what he was saying: this was his city, his country, and I was an unknown danger. I could see his point of view.

'Who was this man you were following?'

When I heard that, I didn't believe it.

'Who was he?' His rage was genuine and he couldn't think clearly enough to use subterfuge, yet he couldn't be serious about this. I just didn't believe it.

'Answer me!'

The belt sent a sliver of wood flying from the table. 'I don't know,' I said.

It was the first time I'd spoken and the sound of someone else's voice got through to him and he stood still and stared at me. 'What are you standing like that for?' he asked with suspicion. 'Are you thinking of attacking me?' His wide chest heaved under his uniform as his lungs worked to recover oxygen. 'Do-you-know-what they would do to you for attacking a colonel of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnost? For attacking him physically in his own headquarters? They — would — have — you — shot!'

He was being very Russian. Anyone who can read a newspaper knows that once you're inside the headquarters of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnost on the wrong end of the banana you're not going to come out looking all that fit. But I wasn't interested in that. I was getting terribly interested in this thing about the man I'd been following, because Vader didn't seem to know his name. Or mine.

It was unbelievable. The first time he'd asked me who I was I knew I'd have to start listening because this was a different approach: they usually want you to feel they know everything about you. What I couldn't believe was that Ignatov had made a phone call in the street and told them to pick me up and they'd done that but they didn't know his name and they didn't know mine.

Something wrong there.

'Of course I'd get shot,' I told him and turned away and folded my arms. 'But what d'you think I'm going to do if you start putting that fucking belt of yours across me — just stand there?'