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with the wrong response catching him out in a lie from the outset. “Making a point,” he tried.
    “Explain,” demanded the Director-General. The man was stone faced, no inflection breaking the soft, measured tone. The light reflected off his rimless spectacles made the man appear sightless.
    “To prove a nonsense.”
    Ambersom matched the frown of the unidentified man next to Smith, who remained the sole interrogator. “Explain.”
    There was sufficient space on the menagerie wall for his head to be mounted alongside, Charlie saw. He had to say something to get a clearer indication of why this confrontation had been escalated. “The nonsense of my being a suicide risk. If I’d wanted to kill myself I could have done so. I didn’t.”
    Smith moved to speak but stopped at the sound of the door opening. From the quickness of the footsteps, Charlie knew it was the woman escort before she came into view from behind him. The examining panel pulled close together as she leaned forward over the table toward them. It was impossible for Charlie to hear anything of the exchange, from which Smith retreated, looking left and right as if seeking comment from those on either side. No one responded, but without any apparent invitation Ambersom said: “Nonsense is a good description of what you’re saying. Now answer properly. Where have you been?”
    Charlie was tempted by the fixed-face woman’s intrusion, more confident of directing the questioning the way he wanted. But he still didn’t have a good enough map of the minefield in which he believed himself to be. The lesser the lies the better, he determined. “Jersey. I took a trip to Jersey, ate some good food, enjoyed the sunshine.”
    “We’ve comb-searched your safe house for four hours,” announced the deputy director, triumphantly. “There wasn’t the slightest trace of your having been to Jersey. Or anywhere else.”
    They hadn’t known about Jersey! The satisfaction warmed Charlie. “Of course there wasn’t. I tossed it all into the Channel. The tradecraft designation is clearing your trail, remember?”
    “What would you say if I told you we don’t believe you?” demanded Ambersom. Her voice had the vaguest blur of a northern accent.
    “I’d say you should check at the Longueville House Hotel in St. Helier: room forty-two, second floor. You can see the harbor.” If they hadn’t known where he’d been they could discover his reason for going there, so he wasn’t giving anything away describing his room.
    There was the slightest tightening of the woman’s angular, makeup-spared face at Charlie’s dismissal. “What would you say if I told you we still don’t believe you?”
    What the hell was this all about! “I’m not sure I’d know what to say.”
    “Tell us about this then,” said Aubrey Smith, nodding to the man nearest the replay machine.
    Into the silent room came the click of an answer phone connection and then a voice that Charlie instantly recognized as Natalia’s. She said: “I think we need help, Charlie. Call me, please. Tell me what’s happening.” The line momentarily went dead before the click of a second connection. This time Natalia said: “I think they know. I’m sure we’re under surveillance.” The third, final segment was: “Help us, Charlie. Please help us.”
    The Director-General said: “We’ve kept on your old Vauxhall apartment, as a precaution. With the telephone still connected. We traced all three calls to separate pay phones in Moscow.”
    The deputy director said: “Who is she?”
    *   *   *
     
    The silence lasted for a very long time after Charlie finished speaking, the panel confronting him statued in apparent disbelief, none looking at the other. Before she did speak, eager to maintain her questioning dominance, Ambersom physically shook her head, like someone awakening from a coma.
    “This woman is a serving officer in the FSB.”
    “Yes,” confirmed Charlie, who’d been completely