“It was all on the radio. And the only thing we left was Milton’s bike, and that’s clean. There’s no way back to us from that.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely sure.”

He took his saucer and cup to his desk and sat down. He exhaled deeply. “What a mess,” he said again. He was frustrated, and that was to be expected, but the immediate threat of the explosion of his temper had passed. “Where is Milton now?”

“Training,” she told him. That was true. He had barely left the quarters where the Group’s logistics were based since the operation. The rangemaster said that he had spent hours with a target pistol, firing over and over until the targets were torn to shreds, then loading another target and pushing it further out and doing it all again.

“Are you still sure about him?”

“He’ll be fine,” she said. “When have I ever been wrong about a recruit?”

“I know,” he said, leaning back. “Never.”

He exhaled again and sipped at his tea. Beatrix looked beyond him, beyond the plush interior of his office where so many death warrants were signed, and out into the darkness beyond. London was going about its business, just as usual. Beatrix's eyes narrowed their focus until she noticed the image in the glass: the back of Control’s head and, facing him, her own reflection. She stood at a crossroads, with a choice of how to proceed: she could say nothing, and go back to her family, or she could do what she had decided she had to do and begin a conversation that could very easily become difficult.

“There was one more thing,” she said.

“What?”

“I pulled some evidence out of the car.”

He sat forward. “That wasn’t in the plan.”

“I know. Force of habit, I suppose. It was there, I took it.”

“And?”

“And you should probably take a look.”

She had travelled to the office on her own motorbike and had stowed the case in a rucksack. She opened the drawstring, took it out and laid it on Control’s desk. It had been locked and she had unscrewed the hinges to get it open; it was held together by one of her husband’s belts at the moment. She unhooked it and removed the top half of the case. There was a clear plastic bag with six flash drives and, beneath that, a manilla envelope. Inside the envelope was a thick sheaf of photographs. They were printed on glossy five-by-eight paper and had been taken by someone from a high vantage point, using a powerful telephoto lens. It was a series, with two people in shot. The first person was a man. He was wearing a heavy overcoat and a woollen hat had been pulled down over his ears. The picture had been taken in a park during the winter; the trees in the foreground were bare and a pile of slush, perhaps from a melted snowman, was visible fifty feet away. The man was bent down, standing over a park bench. There was a woman on the bench.

Despite the distance and the angle that the picture had been taken, it was still obvious that the standing man was Control.

“What is this?” he asked brusquely.

“It was in the case…”

“Yes,” he snapped. “You said. I have no idea why.”

“That’s you, sir, isn’t it?”

“If you say so.”

The atmosphere had become uncomfortable, but Beatrix couldn’t draw back.

“The woman on the bench…”

Control made a show of examining the photograph more closely.

“It’s DOLLAR.” He said nothing. “I don’t understand, sir…”

“Your job is not to understand, Number One. Your job is to follow the orders that I give you.”

He paused; Beatrix thought he was hesitating, searching for the words to say what he wanted to say, but he didn’t say anything else. He just stared at her instead.

“Sir?”

He indicated the flash drives with a dismissive downward brush of his hand. “Have you looked at these?”

“No, sir,” she said, although that was a lie.

“Very good.” He shuffled in his chair, straightening his shoulders. “I want you to keep a close eye on Milton. It might be that we were wrong about him — and we can’t afford passengers. If we were wrong, we’ll need to reassign him. Understood?” She nodded that she did. “That will be all for now. You’re dismissed, Number One.”

She stood, still uncomfortable and confused, and then turned for the door.

She was halfway across the room before Control cleared his throat.

“Look, Number One… Beatrix. Please, sit down again.” She turned back and did so. He had come around the desk and now he was standing by the mantelpiece. “You’re right. I did meet her. A couple of times. Looks like she decided she’d like some pictures to mark the occasion. I can’t tell you why we met and I can’t tell you what we spoke about, save to say that it was connected to the operation. The details are classified. All you need to know, Beatrix, is that you were given a file with her name on it. And you know what that means.”

“I do, sir. Termination.”

“That’s right. Is there anything else you want to ask me?”

She looked at him: a little portly, a little soft, his frame belying his years of service in the forces including, she knew, a distinguished campaign in the Falklands. He was looking at her with an expression that looked like concern but, beneath that, she saw a foundation of suspicion and caution. Beatrix was a professional assassin, Number One amidst a collection of twelve of the most dangerous men and women in the employ of Her Majesty. She was responsible for the deaths of over eighty people all around the world. Bad people who had done bad things. She was not afraid of very much. But Control was not the sort of man you would ever want to cross. She looked at him again, regarding her with shrew-like curiosity, and she was frightened. The thought began to form that she had just made a very, very bad mistake.

Chapter Seven

Beatrix had a house in a pleasant area of East London. There were estates surrounding it on all sides, but the grid of streets that included Lavender Grove was a peaceful and safe middle-class enclave that was, she thought, a good place to set up home. The house that she and her husband had bought five years earlier was a three bedroom terrace, slotted between properties owned by a kindly retired couple and a young banker who was often abroad. The front of the house had a narrow strip of garden that was separated from the pavement by a set of iron railings and they had fixed colourful hanging baskets on either side of the brightly painted red front door. There was a larger garden to the rear, long and narrow, just big enough for the chickens that Beatrix had always wanted. It was a warm house with plenty of space for her, her husband and their daughter.

They were talking about trying for a second child and the house would be big enough for him or her, too, although it would be a little tight. It just needed to get them through the next eighteen months. Beatrix had decided that she would request reassignment from the Group after that; she had been doing it more than long enough. You could reduce the risks involved with an assignment with excellent planning, and Beatrix was fastidious about that, but there was always the chance that something might go wrong: bad intelligence, something that could not have been predicted, a lucky shot. Look at what had happened yesterday. She had been tempting Fate for years and she knew very well that, eventually, that would catch up with her. She was going to get out before that could happen.

She slotted the bike into the nearest space to the house and killed the engine. She took off her helmet, angled her head and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She looked fine: the ride across London had given her some time to think and, now that she had taken a moment to consider it, she wondered whether she might have been overreacting to her conversation with Control. There was probably a very good explanation for the meeting he had taken with DOLLAR, whoever she was. It was entirely possible that he had been gathering intelligence prior to greenlighting the operation to eliminate her.