'Saving the engine?' Alex ventured at one point.
'No. Hanging on to a clean licence,' answered Dawn. She gestured towards the traffic pouring past them.
'And I've nothing to prove to a bunch of stressed-out commuters. Where is it you want to go exactly?'
Alex had tried Sophie earlier but got her voice-mail.
He got it again now. For a reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on something to do with wanting to hear her reaction to the news of his return he didn't want to leave a message.
'Sloane Square,' he answered.
'Anywhere around there.'
'Late-night shopping in the King's Road?' Dawn archly flicked a glance at his shirt.
'No, I've got some friends at the barracks,' said Alex. And sod you too, he thought.
'OK. Sloane Square it is. And I'd be grateful if you didn't go chatting to all your Territorial Army mates about this afternoon's events, if that's all right with you.'
He stared at her.
'It's not my habit to 'go chatting', as you put it, to my mates or to anyone else. I was a badged SAS soldier before you .. .' He faltered to silence. How old was she?
Twenty-five? Twenty-six?'... Before you sat your GCSEs,' he finished weakly.
She smiled.
'So, have you ever killed anyone, Captain?'
'I've hurt a few people's feelings!'
Dawn nodded sagely.
'And are you very conscious of your age? Is that a problem for you? After all, most captains must be ten years younger than you. My sort of age, in fact.'
'Listen,' said Alex, 'if you think your superiors' he stressed the word 'have got the wrong man for the job, I'd be very happy to step down. Just stop the car and I'll fuck off.'
'You'll... fuck off?'
Alex reached over to the back seat for his bag.
'Yes,' he said.
'I'll fuck off.' He looked at her meaningfully.
'There is no aspect of this project that I'm looking forward to, none whatsoever. I've had dealings with Thames House before and regretted it every time. For my money you jokers can dig yourselves out of your own shit.'
'I see. Well, that's certainly telling it like it is. Did it ever occur to you, Captain Temple, that we might all actually be on the same side? Pursuing the same objectives?'
Alex said nothing. At that moment he was at least as angry with himself as he was with her. She'd wound him up and he'd gone off like a fucking clockwork mouse. You're a dickhead, Temple, he told himself.
Get a gr~p.
She slowed to negotiate the lights at Barons Court.
As she pulled on the hand brake Alex watched the muscles in her forearm tauten. She had long fingers and short, square-cut nails.
'You're saying,' she went on, 'that it's really of no concern to you that some .. . some maniac is torturing and murdering our people?'
'I was only wondering why you couldn't deal with the whole thing in-house.'
'The decision has been made to do otherwise,' said Dawn curtly.
Which pretty much brought the argument to a close.
She gave him her mobile and office numbers, and asked him to ring her as soon as he knew where he was staying.
Mentally Alex determined not to do this.
'Do you know your way to Thames House?' she asked.
'Millbank, last time I visited.'
'Tomorrow at 9 a.m.' then. I'll meet you at the front desk.'
'It's a date.'
Unsurprisingly, she didn't smile. A few minutes later, as she brought the Honda to a halt outside the Duke of York's Headquarters in the King's Road, he nodded his thanks and grabbed his bag.
'Tomorrow,' she repeated, flipping a long brown envelope on to the passenger seat.
Alex hesitated before reaching for it.
'Expenses,' she said.
'According to our records, you don't have a London address. And unless you've left some clothes at Miss Wells's and my guess is that you're not really the type for that cosy domestic scene - I'd say that you're going to need to add to your wardrobe some time between now and tomorrow.
Keep it simple, would be my advice, and dress your age. Harrods is still open for a couple of hours. See you.' She didn't even leave at speed, just drew gently away from the kerb.
He watched after her for a moment, shaking his head with intense dislike. The reference to Sophie had had its intended effect: to let him know that Dawn Harding and her organisation could jerk his chain any bloody time they felt like it.
'Not if I see you first,' he murmured, but knew that his words had no meaning.
He and Dawn Harding were locked together for the duration, like it or loathe it. He punched the recall button on his Nokia.
Five minutes later a silver Audi TT convertible pulled to a swerving halt at the kerb.
'Hey, sexy!
Looking for business?'
For the first time that day Alex smiled. Sophie was wearing a screamingly loud Italian print shirt and, despite the lateness of the day, sunglasses. The sight of her made his heart dance.
'Jump in,' she ordered.
From that moment, things picked up. Alex explained his clothing predicament, Sophie made a rapid series of phone calls and five minutes later a willowy young man in leather trousers was unlocking a warehouse in Chelsea Harbour. Lights flickered on to reveal at least a dozen rails of men's clothes and several shoulder high pyramids of shoeboxes.
'Help yourself to anything you want,' the young man told Sophie and Alex.
'I'll find you some bags.'
'What is all this stuff?' Alex asked.
'Mostly bits and pieces from shows and magazine fashion shoots,' Sophie replied.
'A lot of it hasn't even been worn.
They eventually settled on a selection of items that Alex thought slightly over-fashionable and Sophie disappointedly described as 'somewhere between dreary and invisible'.
'In my world,' Alex explained, 'the grey man is king. How much do we owe this guy?'
'Oh, give him a couple of hundred.'
'Are you sure?'
'Don't worry. It'll get written off as damaged.'
'You lot are worse than army quartermasters.'
Sophie swung the keys of the Audi from a slender forefinger.
'My place?'
In the flat overlooking Sloane Street they heated up a Sainsbury's Prawn Vindaloo, drank Kronenbourg beer from bottles and watched Goodness Gracious Me.
For Alex, after weeks of rations consumed in exclusively male company, the evening was heaven.
When she saw that he had unwound a few notches, Sophie settled herself against him on the sofa.
'Is it good news that you're back?' she asked him tentatively.
