The telephone rang. Clayton broke away from the monotony of his emails and took the call.
Cough. ‘Good and bad news for you, Max. Good first: there’s a two-man, or two-person, rather, (nervous giggle) surveillance team watching your Ramli’s Oxford mansion right now. Bad news on the photo, though. My lot haven’t been able to match your fellow to anything on our files, but I’ll try with Special Branch if you like.’
‘Hang on, Graham. I don’t want to get Special Branch involved right now. Just let me know if you get anything interesting from Oxford.’
Clayton rode some more uncertain coughs and rang off. There was one more call to make.
‘Any luck with that number, Houghton?’
‘No, sir. Not on Google. Couldn’t get hold of it anywhere. In the end, I spoke to Johannesburg Section. According to them, Critical Interference went out of business at least five years ago.’
‘And Johannesburg doesn’t have any more than that? No contact names on file?’
‘Nothing immediately available, Sir. Shall I have them check it out?’
The reply took a long time in coming.
‘No, don’t you bother, Houghton,’ Clayton sighed. ‘Maybe I’ll follow this one up myself.’
There was no point in getting carried away with fantasy. If Knox’s team did their work properly, the identity of the enigmatic Mr Al-Ajnabi would be settled soon enough; and with such closure Clayton knew that he could finally bury a ghost that had irrationally slipped from its grave to haunt his subconscious in Cairo.