'Russian,' I said. He'd switched to English, was fluent, but it didn't tally with my cover.' there's no mole.' they don't exist in the Bureau, can't exist, the security checks are like X-rays in that place, they've got to be, we're not the Foreign Office. 'It was just incompetence.' And inexperience, Hornby's. He'd let a word drop somewhere, full of excitement, it's happened before. I'd picked up the vibes from Turner, his DIF in Bucharest, when I'd been with him in the Hotel Constanta. He'd been holding himself back, sick about Hornby's death but wanting to blame him for what had happened, had stopped himself. I'd admired him for that.

The train rocked across points, and buildings swung past the windows, blocks of darkness lumped together on the snow, some with lights showing, pale in the dawn.

'Incompetence,' Zymyanin was saying, 'all right, it was incompetence, he got to the RDV early, you understand that? Early.' I understood, yes, it's one of the cardinal errors, a potentially lethal mistake. 'And what guarantee have I got that I can trust you?' he wanted to know. 'How do I know how competent you are? How do I know you haven't brought half a dozen opposition hit men onto this fucking train because of your incompetence?'

Had a bad scare, he'd had a bad scare, this man, in Bucharest, no fright in his eyes but it was still down there in the gut, I quite understood. I'd been thinking he was a potential danger to me, and he'd been thinking I would be a danger to him if we forced him into i rendezvous, and now we'd done that. It couldn't have been him, last night, standing outside my compartment: if he'd known I was in there he would have run to the far end of the train.

'I know exactly what you mean,' I said. It was no good telling him I was a senior executive; we've had one or two senior executives found in some foreign clime with their brains raked out of their skulls and the capsules still in their pockets. I had to remember it was only two nights ago when this man came close to getting blown into Christendom like Hornby.

'This isn't a rendezvous,' Zymyanin said, watching me, his eyes bright with nerves. 'I didn't ask for one and I don't want one, is that understood? I don't want you to come anywhere near me again. I want you to keep out of my way, right out of my way.'

Someone else went into the lav down there and slammed the door, hit the bolt.

'It must be wine!' one of the cleaners was saying, her voice shrill with vexation, a pink knee showing through the hole in her black stocking as she knelt on the floor with her bar of soap. 'It must be red wine again, look, it's not coming out!'

Some drunk,' the other woman said, 'a drunk did this!'

I'd have to talk him round somehow, Zymyanin, get his confidence back. But I didn't trust him at the moment, and he didn't trust me. Now that he'd seen my face he'd remember seeing me last night m the dining car, then a stranger. He would be wondering why I hadn't followed him out of there when he left, and revealed myself then instead of waiting until now. He'd know I'd realized what he'd been doing in the dining car.

'Who are they?' I asked him.

He'd been keeping observation on the three men.

My question didn't surprise him. He would have been expecting it. sooner or later: I was here to get the information he had for us, and it obviously concerned the men he'd been watching, would be watching again.

In a moment he said,' they are former General Kovalenko and General Velichko of the Army High Command and Special Purpose Militia Detachments respectively, and former General Chudin of the KGB.'

However well a spook is trained and however experienced, he sometimes finds it irresistible to tell what he knows to someone he's at least expected to trust, if what he knows is of great importance.

'And they're now in the Podpolia?' I asked him. The Underground.

'Of course,' he said impatiently.

He was impatient with himself, not with me. He'd revealed his flaw, and knew it, I didn't say anything, waited for him to tell me other things now that he'd started.

'This is so dangerous,' he said, and looked along the corridor again.

'I agree. Who's in your compartment with you?'

'Three Ukrainians, metal workers, they never leave there, they've brought enough food for the whole trip, play cards all the time.'

'I've only got one in with me,' I told him. 'I'll find out when he's going to stretch his legs, and let you know. We can talk in there.' It was a risk: I hadn't wanted him to know my compartment; but he could find out if he wanted to — I'd got no cover — and in any case he seemed ready to talk now and I had to catch him while he was in the mood.

'Listen,' he said on an impulse, 'you must have recognized me last night in the dining car — you must have been given a photograph — so why didn't you follow me out of there when I left?'

I thought of lying, but if I lied he'd know it and I'd lose what trust he'd got in me, if he had any at all.

'I had my reasons,' I said.

He let his eyes stay on me, not showing anything but his nerves, trying to see what was in mine, seeing nothing. I think it angered him. 'Listen, if you want a rendezvous it'll have to be somewhere off the train when we stop for a break.'

There are two breaks a day, Jane had put in her notes for me, when you can stretch your legs and breathe some air, unless the train's running so late that they can't manage it.

There wasn't any point in trying to rush Zymyanin; it'd have to be drawn out.

'When did you first pick them up?' I asked him.

He might be in more danger than I knew, than he was ready to tell me. I'd have to get what I could, as soon as I could.

'I can't tell you that. At least not yet. We — '

'You were going to tell our contact hi Bucharest.'

'No.'

'Then what were you going to tell him?'

He swung his narrow head up to look at me, a sprig of his dark unwashed hair bobbing as he turned. 'I was going to tell him only that those people would be on this train. I — '

'You didn't need a physical rendezvous for that,' I said. 'You could have just signalled London.'

He looked away again, staring through the window, picking at his short ragged nails. A factory of some sort swung by, its chimneys pouring a long dark cloud across the snow-covered roofs of the buildings. 'Listen,' he said,' this is all I can tell you for now. The Bureau should do everything — everything — to keep those people under surveillance. That's why I'm here, of course, but I'm also here because there's a cell in Moscow — ' his head swung up again to look at me — 'a completely unacknowledged, unofficial cell whose purpose is to seek, find and expose the active members of the Podpolia wherever they may be. Many are known, of course, and the KGB is watching them closely. But some are not known, and those we are looking for. That is also why I am here.'

There were voices behind me but I didn't turn round just watched Zymyanin's face, his eyes, as he looked along the corridor. They were men's voices, speaking in Russian, growing louder as they came past. Zymyanin showed nothing, turned his head to stare through the window again.

'… And last week he moved into a new apartment. Shall I tell you about it?'

'No. It'll make me sick.'

'Of course it'll make you sick! In his new apartment he has to share one bathtub with thirty other people, and his kitchen is an electric hot-plate that never gets hot enough to boil water! I thought Yeltsin was going to make a few little changes here and there, didn't you, for God's sake?'

Snow had begun whirling past the windows; we were running into another storm.

'That is all I can tell you,' Zymyanin said, 'for the moment.' He turned away and took a few steps, turned back, his nerves still bright in his eyes. 'When I've got something more, I'll contact you. In the meantime, keep your distance.'