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didn’t know what they wanted, either.
    It was not an easy meal. Hendrix tried his best to play the considerate host and the food and wine were good, but Bell sat enclosed within himself, drinking more than he ate, deep in thought. And Jane was unsettled by the direction in which she’d had to take the interview. She completely believed now that Sharov was telling the truth and that the threat she’d been told to make was pointless bullying that could achieve nothing. Worse, it was clearly something which they would have to go back upon because although the practical assessment was not her responsibility what the Russian had so far provided was unarguably valuable. So there could be no question of refusing him asylum. She hoped she hadn’t pressed Sharov too far to prevent his realizing that, in the security of his upstairs room in which he had been locked for his midday meal.
    Jane was glad when their own meal ended.
    â€˜Well,’ said Hendrix, relieved also, ‘let’s hope, now he’s had time to think, that it’ll come at last.’
    They were in the corridor outside the drawing room when the shout came from above. At first Jane couldn’t make out what it was but then she did, running after the two men who were just slightly ahead of her.
    She got to Sharov’s room before the body was cut down. He’d used his trouser belt to hang himself, looping it over some overhead pipes leading from the bathroom. The pipes had bent under his weight but stopped short of breaking.
    â€˜Oh no!’ said Jane faintly.
    â€˜It wasn’t your fault,’ said the Director General at once. ‘I dictated everything that was done.’
    â€˜He was genuine,’ said Jane distantly. ‘All he did was love someone enough to want to run away with her. And couldn’t understand why we treated him as we did.’
    â€˜And he knew a lot, too,’ said Bell, professionally hard. ‘Maybe not what I wanted to know. But a lot.’
    â€˜Poor Anatoli,’ said Jane.
    â€˜Yes,’ agreed Bell. ‘Poor man.’

3
    The Rescue
    For weeks Peter Whitehead hadn’t had what he considered a worthwhile assignment so he was hopeful of the summons to the Director General’s office: Samuel Bell always personally briefed field agents on the most important jobs. Whitehead, who was unmarried and one of the youngest operatives in the department, just twenty-eight years old, arrived enthusiastically early on the eighth floor of the Factory. He was greeted by Ann Perkins, who looked pointedly at her watch and said he’d have to wait. Whitehead settled in a chair opposite the woman, who was dark and very pretty and had a figure he would normally have admired more obviously, but didn’t. His polite smile was reserved, too: there were growing suggestions around the Factory that the relationship between Ann and her boss went far beyond the professional. Whitehead, who had been attached to the department for only a year, was overwhelmingly ambitious and had no intention of endangering a career by flirting with the Director General’s girlfriend.
    His permission to enter came precisely at the appointed time. Samuel Bell gestured him to a chair, which Whitehead obediently took. Whitehead – a fitness fanatic who didn’t drink, jogged most mornings and swam at least three times a week – thought the Director General looked terrible. Not ill. More neglected. His eyes were red and pouched, his skin had an odd flakiness and he appeared to have dressed without any particular care. As well as the stories about Ann Perkins there were other rumours, that Bell kept an often-used whisky bottle in a desk drawer.
    â€˜It’s a mission and it’s difficult: maybe even impossible,’ announced Bell with the abrupt directness of the admiral he had once been. ‘We’ve got an agent, a woman named Tanya Kulik – codename Freedom – who thinks