Don’t get me wrong. Five do a good job, but we have a handful of analysts. Jane’s alone have a hundred and thirty correspondents around the world. CNN, Fox, Sky and BBC News have thousands. If we’re being realistic, who is likely to get the news first?”

Dee couldn’t work out whether she felt any more or less safe after hearing Boyle’s rant.

“For your information. Miss AD 34792, does not exist. Neither the initial nor the number relate to any individual in our employment, past or present.”

Both Dee and Scott looked puzzled. Either Boyle was lying, or, the MI5 email was nonsense.

“AD is code for ‘avoid disclosure’ and 34792 is the finance code for funds spent under the ‘special operations’ budget. The Special Operation Group was disbanded when the Labour Government realised they would not be getting back in.

The partial fingerprint you found probably belongs to Gillian Davis, formerly Special Operations, UK and Europe. She was predominantly a field operative and her file is marked ‘HVA-S/O’. Before you ask, it stands for High Value Asset – Strategic Control/ Offensive.”

“Are we talking a Licence to kill? Did she have a 00 rating?” DS Scott joked. Boyle wasn’t amused.

“Paul, Dee – I’m being serious here. In essence, High Value Assets are used to carry out assignments that save British or Allied lives. They may take out the charismatic head of a terrorist organisation, hoping that it can’t function without his military or religious leadership. If they’re right, then numerous squaddies’ lives can be saved because close engagement with that group never becomes necessary.

Your suspect, Gillian Davis, was strategically controlled whilst in the service; that means that someone handled her, someone from very high up in the command structure. That someone must have had the power to order her to act offensively on behalf of the UK government. Then, once ordered, she was free to kill or maim personnel and destroy enemy assets or reputations at her discretion.

She could not, however, decide her own targets. An HVA-S/O who picked their own target or ignored orders would be severely disciplined and may well not make it home.”

There had been a lot to take in. Dee had promised herself a dessert, but now didn’t feel in the mood.

“How sure are we that the print belongs to this Gillian Davis?” she asked.

“Well, the partial print alone will convict no-one; it has fewer points of comparison than we need to convince a judge. But add that to the fact that your man was taken down by a very professional female with a rare chemical or venom of some kind - typical spook behaviour, by the way - and you have Gillian Davis.”

“Has she used this method of killing before?” DS Scott wondered out loud.

“Possibly. The opposition don’t usually send us post mortem results. But a quick look at her profile might help.”

Boyle reached into his inside pocket and withdrew a sheet of A4 paper, folded into three. He unfolded it to reveal the black and white picture of a pretty fair-haired girl and lines of closely printed text.

Dee and Paul Scott read the sheet together, each holding one side of the paper.

“Hell’s teeth, you’re good, Boyle. You need to get back to the Met. We need guys like you. She has a BSc. in Chemistry, with honours, no less, and a Masters in Forensic Chemistry! So, we let a pretty young chemist loose on the world’s bad guys. Man, the glass ceiling is well and truly shattered. It’s equal opportunities for all at MI5.”

“It does look damning,” Dee contributed. “But what will you do if the police pick her up and her bosses start looking for the leak?”

“Don’t sweat it, Dee. Her former boss - let’s just call him Barry - heads up internal investigations and he couldn’t find a leak in his own underpants. He fell from grace just before they shut down the special operations team. It seems that he authorised the destabilisation of that guy,” - he pointed to a picture on the front page of the Times - “when he was running for his party’s nomination.” The picture portrayed an imposing African American man shaking hands with the Chinese Prime Minister, whilst standing at the White House Podium in front of the Stars and Stripes.

Dee and DS Scott uttered the same expletive in unison.

***

It was late in the evening when DS Scott finally returned Dee’s call, which he had promised he would as they left the restaurant.

“Dee, the address we have on file for Davis is useless. The local constabulary say that it’s a former gamekeeper’s lodge in the grounds of a big house near Basingstoke in Hampshire. There are dozens of people called Gillian Davis around the country, and Facebook lists forty-six in London alone, none of whom look like our girl. I’m sure we’ll find her, but it may take some time.”

“OK, Paul. Let’s just hope we find her before MI5 do, otherwise she’ll never see the witness box. The likelihood is that she will find herself in a box of the terminally enclosed kind.”

“You’re probably right about that. We’ll work as fast as we can, but if your computer genius - what’s his name?”

“Simon?”

“Yeah, that’s him. Simon. If Simon can work his database magic while we’re doing the legwork it would really help.”

“OK, Paul. He’s on the case as of now!”

***

Simon left Dee’s office with his instructions. There would be hundreds of women named Gillian Davis around the country, but it was likely that he would find only one with her qualifications and skills, and only one with her stunning good looks.

He sat down at his console and ordered in pizza. He would work through the night, grabbing what sleep he could in one of the office sleeping pods at the end of the corridor.

Simon looked like a geek, but a smartly dressed geek. Vastrick had standards that applied to all, even the oddball IT types. Simon had a degree and several other qualifications that suggested he could make any computer sing and dance or recite a soliloquy of one’s choosing. That description was not too far from the truth. The young analyst typed in the name Gillian Davis, and ran his first combined high-level search which interrogated the White Pages, the Electoral Rolls and the Registers of Births and Marriages. His enquiry returned over two hundred premium results. These were women of all ages who matched the input data exactly.

Simon clicked on the left hand bar of the results page and typed in Gillian Davis’ age, then ticked the box +/- 5 years. The results were instant, and the list narrowed to twenty-three premium results.

He was just five minutes into his ‘overnight’ search when he clicked on ‘show only results with photos’.

There were only five results, but he was quite certain that the person he was looking for was showing at number one. Just to make sure, he clicked on the hyperlink. It was her; there was no doubt in his mind. Gillian Davis MD of Celebrato Cards was shown receiving the Young Business Leader of the Year award at the London Chambers of Commerce dinner in 2008, and the photograph captured the same alluring face he had seen on the black and white print which Norrie Boyle had supplied.

In another twenty minutes the young analyst had found another six photos of the suspect, including one of her being awarded a Prize for Chemistry, along with an old press article from the Times, explaining that the British Olympic Committee had ruled the young Gillian Davis out of the National Rifle Team due to a recurrent shoulder injury.

Simon hoped that Dee had not left for home. He had taken less than thirty minutes to do what Dee had thought would take a day. In forensic computing you got lucky occasionally, finding the right data at first pass rather than at the hundred and first pass. It was a bit of a fluke, really, but Simon wouldn’t be telling his boss that.

Chapter 29

The Aldwych, London. Tuesday 9:40am