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as I expected. For one thing, the boy speaks almost perfect English. I don’t think many children from Ladakh can do that.’ 
    ‘He’s not from Ladakh,’ David said. 
    ‘How can you know?’
    ‘I only have to look at him.’ He turned from Ross to the boy. ‘Khush, yakhshimusiz?’
    The boy smiled, like someone who has been caught out in a minor deceit.
    ‘Yakhshi,’ he replied, as though he’d known David for years. There was no trace of embarrassment or guilt in his face or voice. ‘Ozinizchu? Qandaq ahwaliniz?’ Fine. How are you? How are things going?
    ‘He’s from Sinkiang,’ said David. ‘He’s a Uighur. Now, perhaps we can drop this silliness about reincarnations.’
    ‘Actually, I don’t think we can, David,’ Pauline said. ‘Where he comes from isn’t terribly important. It’s what he knows.’
    ‘He lied about where he came from. Presumably the rest is a lie as well.’
    Donaldson treated the comment as a cue to speak for the first time.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mr Laing, but I think you’re jumping the gun here. The boy’s already been through exhaustive questioning. We’ve determined that, whatever the source of it, his story is basically true. He knows things it would be impossible for any child from Ladakh or, for that matter, Sinkiang to know. He knows about Operation Hong Cha.’
    David said nothing. There was nothing he could say in answer to that. Operation Hong Cha was something only he, Matthew Hyde, and Anthony Farrar had known about in the first months. Something only ten people knew about even now. One of British intelligence’s most secret operations since the Second World War. Donaldson was right. If the boy knew about Hong Cha, he was more than he seemed.
    ‘He knows the details?’
    Pauline nodded.
    ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘At least, everything Matthew Hyde knew.’
    ‘Go on with your story, Mr Ross. I’m sorry I interrupted.’
    ‘I came away from that first interview feeling as though I’d just been scooped out. Yongden told me enough to convince me he knew about the Secret Service, about London, about places I’d only heard of. Like this house. When I got back to Delhi I made enquiries about Matthew Hyde. It was then I got in touch with Dennison. The boy was brought back here after he spoke with him.’ 
    ‘Surely this is just some sort of circus trick.’ 
    ‘I assure you it’s not, David.’ Pauline’s voice was dark and troubled. She didn’t like this any more than he did. ‘He says Hong Cha was not aborted. That Hyde got into the Taklamakan and out again. That he knows the full coordinates and all other details. But he’ll only reveal them to you.’ 
    ‘I see.’
    That explained why Donaldson was here then. Operation Hong Cha had been set up three years earlier on the back of rumours that Iraqi nuclear scientists had been spotted near military research centres in western China. Matthew Hyde had been sent on a mission to explore a number of possible sites where, it was rumoured, a super-weapon was being developed for Saddam Hussein. Hyde had made contact twice with a local contact in Charkhliq, then vanished. Every attempt to locate him after that had failed, and in the end Farrar had shut down the operation. And, despite David’s protests, given up the hunt for Matthew Hyde. He looked at the boy.
    ‘What’s your real name?’ he asked in English. 
    ‘Tursun.’
    ‘Why did you lie about coming from Ladakh?’ 
    ‘It was a necessary lie. If I’d said we were from Sinkiang, the Indian authorities would have sent us back. Now I’m here, there’s no point in it. It makes no difference.’
    ‘Is there a weapon?’
    ‘There was none while I was alive.’
    ‘And now?’
    'I can’t speak for now. Three years ago they had made considerable progress, but the project was still continuing. They must be very close by now.’
    ‘What is the name of the Iraqi general who handles things at their end?’
    ‘Abd al-Latif Nuri.’
    David felt like