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“Indeed.” He smiles faintly.

“Indeed.” There’s nothing I can say to that without being rude, and we in the Laundry have an old saying: Do not in haste be rude to whoever’s buying the drinks. So I raise my tumbler, take a good sniff (just to make sure it isn’t poison), and examine him over the rim.

“You surprised Dr. Tring, you know. Most of the students here are aiming to network and make connections; you might want to pick a slightly less objectionable cover story next time.”

Cover story. I give him the hairy eyeball. “For the third time. Who’s asking?”

He reaches into his jacket pocket with his right hand and withdraws a familiar-looking card. Which he then holds in front of me while I read the name on it and feel a prickling in the balls of my thumbs (and a vibration in the ward that hangs on a chain around my neck) that tells me it’s the real thing.

“All right, Mr. Lockhart.” I take a sip of his whisky and allow myself to relax—but only a little. “I’ll take your helpful advice under consideration, although in my defense, I have to say, the story wasn’t my idea. But what—if I may ask—are you doing here?”

“I’d have thought it was obvious; I’m enjoying an after-work drink and networking with a useful contact in the Highways Agency.” Gerald Lockhart, who at SSO8(L) is a stratospheric four grades above me—that’s four grades up in the same organization—replies without any noticeable inflection.

“Uh huh.” I think for a moment. “We couldn’t possibly be running an ongoing effort here to identify suitable candidates for recruitment from within other branches of the civil service—or to implant geases in up-and-coming players fast-tracked for promotion that will enable us to work more effectively with them in future. Could we?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Howard, and I’d thank you to stop speculating along such lines. You’re not cleared for them.”

Oops. “Okay, I’ll stop.” But I can’t avoid a little jab: “But you’re obviously cleared for me, aren’t you?”

Lockhart fixes me with a reptilian stare: “James warned me about your sense of humor, young man. I think he indulges you too much.”

Young man? I’m in my early thirties. On the other hand, I can take a hint that I’m in over my head: when your sparring partner turns out to be on a first-name basis with Angleton, it’s time to back off.

I put my glass down, even though it’s not empty. “Look, I don’t need this. You obviously want to talk to me about something. But I’ve had a bad day, I’m not terribly happy to be here, and I’m not handling this very well. So I’d appreciate it if you’d just say your piece, all right?”

I can see his jaw working, behind the salt-and-pepper topiary on his upper lip. “If that’s the way you want it.” He takes a sip of his single malt. “I expect you’ve noticed that there are a lot of high-flyers here. Civil servants who are being groomed for upper management roles, where in ten years time they’ll deal with members of the government and represent their departments in public. You should be making notes, Mr. Howard, because although you won’t be dealing with the general public, you’ll certainly be representing us in front of these people. You’re going to need those people-handling skills. If we all live long enough for you to acquire them. Ha, ha.”

“Ha”—I try not to look unsuitably unamused—“ha. So?”

“James is assigning you to my department for a little project—nothing you can’t handle, I assure you. I’ll see you in my office next Monday morning at eleven o’clock sharp. In the meantime, you have some background reading to catch up on.” He slides a dog-eared paperback towards me across the table before I can respond. “Good night, Mr. Howard.” He rises, and before I can open my mouth and insert any additional limbs he vanishes.

I pick up the book and turn it over in my hands. Spy-Catcher, it says, by Peter Wright. A New York Times bestseller. I stare at it. Background reading? Wasn’t he a rogue Security Service officer from the seventies or something? How bizarre. I pick up my whisky glass, and open the book.

Oh well, at least I’ve got something to pass the evenings with now…

3. BIG TENT

A BLOCK OF SIX GEORGIAN TOWN HOUSES CLUSTER DISCREETLY together on one of the leafy avenues behind Sloane Square in London, south of Victoria and west of Westminster.

In the house at the west end of the row there lives a witch.

A man stands waiting on her doorstep. He wears a pin-striped suit of conservative cut and his hair is graying in late middle age; he might be a senior partner in a law firm, or an accountant paying a house call to a rich, elderly client to discuss their affairs. But appearances are deceptive. He is in fact SSO8(L) Gerald Lockhart, and he is visiting on business.

There are many types of self-identified witches. The common or garden variety is generally harmless—women of a certain age who wear purple disgracefully, have two or more cats, run a new age shop, recycle fanatically, and sometimes believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.

The witch who lives in this particular house doesn’t wear purple, can’t be bothered with pets, prefers wholesale to retail (but quit both trades some years ago), pays a cleaning firm to take care of the recycling, knows several demons personally, and is not even remotely harmless.

Gerald Lockhart puts his finger on the doorbell and, with an expression of grim determination not obviously warranted by such a trivial action, pushes it.

Somewhere behind the glossy black door, a bell jangles. Lockhart relaxes his finger on the button after a second, then glances up at the discreet black golf ball of the camera above the door. A few seconds later he hears footsteps approaching. Then the door opens.

“Good afternoon.” The man who opens the door is in his late twenties, with shaven head and a slacker goatee; however, he wears a suit so funereal in cut that he could be taken for an undertaker, if undertakers wore black open-necked shirts with their weeds. “Ah, Mr. Lockhart? I believe Ms. Hazard is expecting you. If you’d care to follow me, sir? I’m sure she’ll only be a minute.”

Lockhart follows the butler across a tiled hallway and through a side door that leads into a parlor at the front of the house. There are side tables, armchairs, and a sofa, the latter items recently re-upholstered but clearly dating to an earlier century. The butler leaves him; as he turns to go, Gerald notes with interest the earring, the tattoos on the back of his neck, and the cut of his jacket, tailored to draw attention away from his broad, heavily muscled shoulders. Ms. Hazard does not employ household staff solely as an affectation of personal wealth. Lockhart makes a mental note to have the fellow’s background checked. It’s always useful to have a little extra leverage.

Somewhat closer to three minutes later, the parlor door opens. “Good afternoon,” Lockhart says, rising reflexively. “And thank you for making time to see me at such short notice.”

“It is a pleasure, as always.” Persephone beams as she steps closer. Her diction is very slightly stilted, with the echo of an Italian accent lending it a musical trilclass="underline" her elocution tutor is clearly first-rate. “How are you, Gerald? And how are the children?”

The witch wears an understated gray wool dress with black tights and kitten heels; with her hair pulled tightly back and minimal makeup, she exudes a gamine charm. She moves fluidly, as if only loosely bound by gravity. Lockhart thinks she carries herself like a dancer; but he notices the hardened skin on the backs of her hands—deftly obscured by a smudge of concealer across her knuckles—and the loose sleeves that conceal her shoulders and upper arms. The Nutcracker ballet, for Karate and Krav Maga, perhaps.