‘Fine.’

‘Just fine?’

This is not a conversation I particularly want to have. I’d rather talk about the incident up north.

‘Well, what can I tell you, Richard? It’s Hepburn and Tracy. It’s Hanks and Ryan. She’s the love of my life. I can’t thank you enough for introducing us because I really think she might be the one.’

He is laughing. ‘That bad?’

I shrug it off. ‘No. She’s a nice person, fanatically right wing, but you can’t have everything. It doesn’t feel right to be taking advantage of her. But if some good comes of it…’

He takes out a Lucky Strike. ‘Exactly. If some good comes of it.’ I have a book of matches in my pocket and light the cigarette for him. In some ways, this simple act seems to cause Kitson more embarrassment than the intimate discussion of my sex life. ‘Thank you,’ he says, exhaling.

‘Don’t mention it.’

And there is an odd, uncomfortable silence. Two loud American tourists come in behind us and fill it.

‘I suppose it was always going to be the case,’ he says eventually.

‘What was?’

‘That it would be awkward.’

Does he think less of me for agreeing to do it? I have always worried about that.

‘Yes.’

‘Still, as you say, if what she tells you and what you get on the disks helps us to stop what’s going on, then it’ll all have been worthwhile.’

Strange that of all the things we have ever discussed, this should be the subject to cause Kitson the most discomfort. An Englishman through and through. He looks thoroughly unsettled. I try a joke.

‘Unless she gives me the clap, in which case I might sue the Foreign Office.’

But he doesn’t laugh. ‘I’m just sorry we’ve put you through it,’ he says, dragging an ashtray towards him. ‘Really sorry.’

‘Say no more.’

For a while we sit in silence, watching the local Romanian beggar doing her Balkan moan outside. She works the crowds near Burger King and McDonald’s, looking forlornly at the swaddled toddler in her arms. There’s a VIPS restaurant next door and a regular flow of customers passing in front of the window. Inside Starbucks, a woman with a cup of hot chocolate looks to be moving within earshot of our conversation, so Kitson calls it a day.

‘Look.’ He seems suddenly energized. ‘It’s important that we get results from Arroyo as quickly as possible. If she can point a finger at the guilty parties we can arrange to have them taken out of the equation using our contacts in Spanish intelligence. A sex scandal, financial irregularities, these things are easy to arrange.’

‘A sex scandal won’t do it.’

‘What?’

‘Spaniards don’t give a shit about that sort of thing. Aznar could be doing it sideways with Roberto Carlos and nobody would bat an eyelid. If you want to create a scandal in this country, stay away from the bedroom. They’re a lot more enlightened than we are when it comes to things like that. More like the French.’

‘I see.’ Judging by his expression, Kitson doesn’t necessarily regard this as a good thing. ‘Look, in order to create any sort of smokescreen, we’re going to need hard evidence. SIS can’t launch something with the collusion of the Spanish government without conclusive proof. It would be highly embarrassing if we’ve got our facts wrong. At the moment all we have is conjecture.’

I dispute this. ‘You’ve got a lot more than that, Richard…’

‘Fine,’ he agrees, but it is as if he is about to lose patience. Why don’t we just take the conversation outside and walk around for a bit? Why is he so keen to leave? ‘We don’t have anything that would stand up in court.’ The hot chocolate woman has made her way to the counter and is now just a few feet away, but she takes out a mobile phone, dials a number, and begins chattering loudly in Spanish. That buys him time. ‘The vital thing to remember is that we’re trying to preserve the dignity of the international relationship.’ Kitson puts on his coat, stubs out the cigarette and lowers his voice. Why is he so rushed? ‘Mr Aznar is trying to drag this country, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century and an illegal counter-terrorism operation within one of his ministerial departments must not be allowed to get in the way of that.’

‘Richard, you’re preaching to the converted…’

‘Fine.’

I look down at the memory stick, annoyed now, taking Kitson’s eyes with me.

‘There might be something in there.’

‘Unlikely,’ he replies. ‘Anything state sensitive will be on the Interior Ministry mainframe. Carmen wouldn’t be allowed to take it home. Or at least she shouldn’t be. You have to push it now, Alec. It’s not just a question of snooping around a computer. You have to run her.’

Behind us, the American couple are walking out of the door with takeaway cups of coffee. One of them says, ‘It was just like home,’ and waddles out into the square. The Romanian beggar blocks her exit.

‘What about Anthony’s investigations?’ I ask, but it’s clear Kitson just wants to leave. Perhaps he thinks we have been observed. ‘Hasn’t he uncovered anything?’

‘Not much.’ I don’t really believe this response, but it’s too late to start arguing. ‘Look.’ He is already at the door. ‘You’re the prize catch here, Alec. You’re the one who needs to deliver.’

And with that he is gone, slipping the pen into the inside pocket of his coat. I watch him disappear into the lunchtime crowds, still wondering why he forced the issue so blatantly, so suddenly towards the end. Was it simply that his professional mask was disturbed by talk of sex and Carmen? Did that throw him? And how the hell am I going to find a moment in which to pitch her in the next twenty-four hours? My instincts tell me she’ll simply throw me out into the street. Kitson should have listened to my concerns. That was bad tradecraft.

Then more confusion. Just as I am gathering up my belongings – a wallet, a mobile phone, a copy of the Daily Telegraph – Julian Church walks right past the window, deep in conversation with a beautiful black girl. I recognize her. It takes just a couple of seconds to remember where I have seen her before: in the hall of my apartment, standing naked, wearing a pair of bright yellow knickers. She is the girl Saul was sleeping with on the morning that I came back from Euskal Herria. She was the student studying art at Columbia. She was American.

38. Columbia

I follow them. They walk out of the square, still deep in conversation, and appear to be heading towards one of the southern entrances of the Cubos underground car park. At the last minute, however, the girl leads Julian off to the right into the foyer of an apartment block immediately behind the Torre de Madrid. She’s wearing tight blue jeans and boots that accentuate her extraordinary figure. Their relaxed body language and physical proximity would suggest that they have met before. I am no more than six or seven metres behind them. There are two sets of glass swing doors leading into the building. They ignore the porter inside the entrance, moving along the L-shaped lobby towards a bank of lifts. I wait round the corner and hear only a snatch of their conversation.

‘So this is where you live?’ Julian asks in Spanish. It sounds as though the girl merely giggles as the lift doors close behind them. Two seconds later I come round the corner and try to discover which floor they were heading for. The lights are out on two of the six lift panels and another left the ground floor at more or less the same time. It’s not going to be possible to track them. There’s only one thing for it: I’ll just have to wait here until they come out.

‘Is there another exit from this building?’ I ask the porter, walking back up to the lobby entrance. He’s an old man, at least mid-seventies, and it looks as though he hasn’t been asked a question since the Civil War.