They asked him a few more questions about Los Angeles while they waited for the food to arrive. Alex answered on autopilot. He watched a couple of teenagers go past on skateboards and wished he could join them. That was what a fourteen year old should be doing in the Miami sunshine. Not playing spy games with two sour-faced adults who had already decided they weren’t going to give him a chance.

The food came. Turner and Troy had both ordered fruit salad and cappuccino-decaffeinated with skimmed milk. Alex guessed they were watching their weight. His own toast came-with grape jelly. The butter was whipped and white and seemed to disappear when it was spread.

“So who is the Salesman?” Alex asked.

“You don’t need to know that,” Turner replied.

Alex decided he’d had enough. He put down his knife. “All right,” he said. “You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t want to work with me. Well, that’s fine, because I don’t want to work with you either. And for what it’s worth, nobody would ever believe you were my parents because no parents would ever behave like you two!”

“Alex-” Troy began.

“Forget it! I’m going back to London. And if your Mr Byrne asks why, you can tell him I didn’t like the jelly so I went home to get some jam.”

He stood up. Troy was on her feet at the same time. Alex glanced at Turner. He was looking uncertain too. He guessed that they would have been glad to see the back of him. But at the same time, they were afraid of their boss.

“Sit down, Alex,” Troy said. She shrugged. “OK. We were out of line. We didn’t mean to give you a hard time.”

Alex met her eyes. He slowly sat down again.

“It’s just gonna take us a bit of time to get used to the situation,” Troy went on. “Turner and me… we’ve worked together before… but we don’t know you.”

Turner nodded. “You get killed, how’s that gonna make us feel?”

“I was told there wasn’t going to be any danger,” Alex said. “Anyway, I can look after myself.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Alex opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself. There was no point arguing with these people. They’d already made up their minds, and anyway, they were the sort who were always right. He’d met teachers just like them. But at least he’d achieved something now. The two special agents had decided to loosen up.

“You want to know about the Salesman?” Troy began. “He’s a crook. He’s based here in Miami. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“He’s Mexican,” Turner added. “From Mexico City.”

“So what does he do?”

“He does just what his name says. He sells things. Drugs. Weapons. False identities. Information.” Troy ticked off the list on her fingers. “If you need something and it’s against the law, the Salesman will supply it. At a price, of course.”

“I thought you were investigating Sarov.”

“We are.” Turner hesitated. “The Salesman may have sold something to Sarov. That’s the connection.”

“What did he sell?”

“We don’t know for sure.” Turner was looking increasingly nervous. “We just know that two of the Salesman’s agents flew into Skeleton Key recently. They flew in but they didn’t fly out again. We’ve been trying to find out what Sarov was buying.”

“What’s all this got to do with the Russian president?” Alex still wasn’t sure he was being told the truth.

“We won’t know that until we know what it was that Sarov bought,” Troy said, as if explaining something to a six year old.

“I’ve been working undercover with the Salesman for a while now,” Turner went on. “I’m buying drugs. Half a million dollars’ worth of cocaine, being flown in from Colombia. At least, that’s what he thinks.” Turner smiled. “We have a pretty good relationship. He trusts me. And today just happens to be the Salesman’s birthday, so he invited me to go for a drink on his boat.”

Alex looked across to the sea. “Which one is it?”

“That one.” Turner pointed at a boat moored at the end of a jetty about fifty metres away. Alex drew a breath.

It was one of the most beautiful boats he had ever seen. Not sleek, white and fibreglass like so many of the cruisers he had seen moored around Miami. Not even modern. She was called Mayfair Lady and was an Edwardian classic motor yacht, eighty years old, like something out of a black and white film. The boat was one hundred and twenty feet long with a single funnel rising over its centre. The main saloon was at deck level, just behind the bridge. A sweeping line of fifteen or more portholes suggested cabins and dining rooms below. The boat was cream with natural wood trimmings, a wooden deck and brass lamps under the canopies. A tall, slender mast rose up at the front with a radar, the boat’s one visible connection with the twenty-first century. Mayfair Lady didn’t belong in Miami. She belonged in a museum. And every boat that came near her was somehow ugly by comparison.

“It’s a nice boat,” Alex said. “The Salesman must be doing well.”

“The Salesman should be in jail,” Troy muttered. She had seen the admiring Look in Alex’s eyes and didn’t approve. “And one day that’s where we’re going to put him.”

“Thirty years to life,” Turner agreed.

Troy dug her spoon into her fruit salad. “All right, Alex,” she said, “let’s start again. Your maths teacher. What’s her name?”

Alex looked round. “Her name is Mrs Hazeldene. And-nice try-but we learn maths in England. Americans learn math.”

Troy nodded but didn’t smile. “You’re getting there,” she said.

They finished their breakfast. The CIA agents tested Alex on a few more details, then lapsed into silence. They didn’t ask him about his life in England, his friends, or how he had stumbled into the world of MI6. They didn’t seem to want to know anything about him.

The skateboarders had stopped playing and were slumped on the boardwalk, drinking Cokes. Turner looked at his watch. “Time to go,” he muttered.

“I’ll stay with the kid,” Troy said.

“I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.” Turner stood up, then slapped his hand against his head. “Hell! I didn’t get the Salesman a birthday present!”

“He won’t mind,” Troy said. “Tell him you forgot.”

“You don’t think he’ll be upset?”

“It’s OK, Turner. Invite him out for lunch another time. He’ll like that.”

Turner smiled. “Good idea.”

“Good luck,” Alex said.

Turner got up and left. As he walked away, Alex noticed a man in a bright Hawaiian shirt and white trousers coming from the opposite direction. It was impossible to see the man’s face because he was wearing sunglasses and a straw hat. But he must have been involved in some sort of terrible accident-his legs were dragging awkwardly and there seemed to be no life in his arms. For a moment he was right next to Turner on the boardwalk. Turner didn’t notice him. Then, moving surprisingly quickly, he had gone.

Alex and Troy watched as Turner walked all the way along to Mayfair Lady. There was a ramp at the end of the jetty, leading up to deck level. It allowed the crew to wheel supplies on board. A couple of men were just finishing as Turner arrived. He spoke to them. One of them pointed in the direction of the saloon cabin. Turner went up the ramp and disappeared on board.

“What happens now?” Alex asked.

“We wait.”

For about fifteen minutes nothing happened. Alex tried to talk to Troy but her attention was fixed on the boat and she said nothing. He wondered about the relationship between the two agents. They obviously knew each other well and Byrne had told him they’d worked together before. Neither of them showed their emotions, but he wondered if their friendship might be more than professional.

Then Alex saw Troy sit up in her seat. He followed her eyes back to the boat. Smoke was coming out of the funnel. The engines had started up. The two crewmen Turner had spoken to were on the jetty. One of them untied the boat, then climbed onboard. The other one walked off. Slowly, Mayfair Lady began to move away from her mooring.