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He looked across at Wetherby, and then at Liz. “And we need to stay in constant touch with our agents this end, too.”
    “That’s already happening,” said Wetherby. “If they hear about anything, so will we, but so far . . .” He glanced interrogatively at the GCHQ rep, who pursed his lips non-committally.
    “We’ve had a bit more background noise than usual. No specific indicators though. Nothing approaching the traffic you’d associate with a major operation.”
    Liz looked covertly around the room. The Special Branch officers, as usual, had remained silent. Their habitual attitudes were those of busy men whose time was being wasted in a Whitehall talking-shop. But both were now sitting upright and alert.
    Her eyes met Mackay’s. He didn’t smile or look away but stared straight back. She continued her scan of the room but knew that the MI6 officer was still watching her. Felt the slow, cold burn of his gaze.
    Wetherby, in turn—his tired, forgettable features voided of all expression—was watching Mackay. The circuit held for a long, taut moment and then Fane cut in with a general question about MI5 agents in the UK’s militant Islamic communities. “Just how close to the action are these people of yours?” he demanded. “Would they be amongst the need-to-knows if a major ITS operation was being mounted against this country?”
    Wetherby let Liz field it. “In most cases probably not,” she said, knowing from experience that optimism cut no ice with Fane. “But we’ve got people in the right orbits. Time will see them move closer to the centre.”
    “Time?”
    “We’re not in a position to accelerate the process.”
    She had decided not to mention Marzipan. The agent would have been a strong card to play but he had yet to prove his worth. Or, for that matter, his courage. At this early stage in his career as an agent she wasn’t prepared to reveal him—certainly not to a circle as wide as this one.
    Wetherby, inscrutable, was tapping his lips with a pencil, but Liz could tell from his posture that he considered her decision the correct one. She had not allowed Fane to bump her into a statement that could later be held against them.
    And Mackay, she realised with a faint sinking sensation, was still watching her. Was she unknowingly transmitting some kind of bat-like sexual sonar? Or was Mackay one of those men who felt that he had to establish a complicity with every woman who crossed his path, so that afterwards he could tell himself that he could have had her if he’d wanted? Either way, she felt more irritated than flattered.
    Above their heads one of the tube lights began to flicker. It seemed to signal the meeting’s end.

 

    I n Trumper’s in Jermyn Street, a mile to the northwest, Peregrine Lakeby settled himself into the well-stuffed comfort of his chair. With some satisfaction, he surveyed himself in the angled mirror. It was not easy to look elegant while a barber fussed around you with his towels and brushes, but despite his sixty-two summers Perry Lakeby congratulated himself that he managed it. Not for him the thread veins, pouchy eyes and multiple chins that rendered his contemporaries so physically unappealing. Lakeby’s gaze was a clear sea-blue, his skin was taut, his hair a backswept gunmetal mane.
    Why he should have escaped time’s attrition when others had not, Perry had no idea. He ate and drank, if not to excess, then certainly without moderation. The closest he got to exercise was the odd bout of adultery and, in season, a few days’ shooting. If pressed, he would probably have attributed his well-preserved appearance to good breeding. The Lakebys, he was fond of informing people, descended from the Saxons.
    “Good journey up to town, sir?”
    Perry raised a dyspeptic eyebrow. “Not too bad, barring the mobile phone louts. People seem to think nothing of broadcasting the details of their ghastly lives to the world. And at balls-aching bloody length, too.”
    Mr.