Despite his initial fears he had not come to any harm in prison. The police had agreed to White's request for the charge against his deputy to be put down as fraud for the time being, so nobody took any interest in the thin, tweedy old man who worked for the civil service or something. He shunned all social activities and remained in his cell all day whenever possible.
White did not want to have to deal with the publicity about his deputy being charged with murder until all the loose ends were tied up.
This meant Peterson had 'enjoyed' a relatively uneventful few days in prison.
He knew as soon as White entered that this was about to change.
"We need to have a very frank conversation." Peterson did not reply.
"We've finally found your accomplice. He was in Brighton and fortunately too stupid to keep his nose clean. He was arrested for a relatively minor offence. We have a DNA match from Libby Stevens which proves he was not her attacker."
Peterson remained silent.
"Imagine my surprise when we ran a check against your DNA and discovered that you were the one who beat Libby Stevens to death. Phoning that man was a red herring."
"No it wasn't," said Peterson quietly, "I did try to hire him, but at the last minute he asked for fifteen thousand so I told him to forget it."
"So you thought you would kill your bit on the side yourself to save money?"
"It wasn't like that."
"Well then, by all means, please tell me exactly what the fuck it was like?"
"She was a CIA plant."
White looked at his former deputy. This was certainly unexpected.
"If this is more of your bullshit I am going to become very angry very quickly," he warned.
"It's true, I swear. She spiked my drink one night, maybe drugged me as well. I don't know what I said, it could have been anything. The next day, though I couldn't remember anything at all, I knew she'd done something to me. I searched her flat and found a passport in her real name. It's locked in my desk in the office."
White thought for a moment. He hadn't got around to clearing his office and had seen no reason to search it; Peterson wouldn't be stupid enough to leave anything incriminating in his own office. But it would be exactly like him to leave something there which he hoped would bail him out of trouble.
"I presume you ran a check on her?" asked White.
"Yes, she was definitely CIA, though obviously now she's dead they'll have erased all her files and she'll have never existed. I kept the printout of my search but they'll just say we faked it."
"I'll have to go and think about all this," said White. "I assume you've told nobody else?"
"Of course not."
"Good. That's at least one thing you've done correctly. Don't go anywhere - I'll be in touch."
Two hours later White welcomed Agents 4, 22, 61, 45 and 37 into his office.
"CIA?" said Jennifer. "What the fuck were they doing messing about with Peterson? Blackmail of some sort?"
"I doubt she shagged him for fun," said Hannah.
"He says she drugged him to make him talk, though he's no idea what he said."
"There have been major advances in truth drugs," said Adam, "if it was one of the better ones he would have answered any questions she put to him."
"But what could they hope to get..." began Jennifer, before the realisation hit her like a snooker ball in a sock. She looked over at Arthur, then addressed the director. "When exactly did this drugging occur?"
"Two weeks ago, on Wednesday. Four days before somebody got to Arthur and gave him the virus."
Everyone exchanged shocked glances, then all eyes fell on Arthur.
He sat, open mouthed, words failing him.
"CIA," he eventually muttered. "The CIA scrambled my brain!?"
"Sounds like a bad horror film," quipped John. "Sorry, Arthur."
"But why?" said Arthur.
"We still don't know," said White, "but now that we know where the virus came from I've got the tech guys re-examining it. They're looking for any finger prints from known American programmers etc. Of course we never thought of America as being the source. Hopefully this will greatly narrow down our search. Anyway, I don't know what we're going to do with Peterson but obviously he's out of T14. That means I've had to give some thought to the subject of appointing a new deputy director. Arthur, would you be interested in the job?"
Agent 4 looked completely flummoxed for the second time in two minutes.
"It's more of a desk job than you've been used to but there are worse ways to earn a living."
"Barbara would be pleased that I was out of the way of bullets and people messing about with my brain," he said, forcing a smile.
"How is Barbara, since..." White found a reason to look down at his notes.
"Since I told her I'd shagged a drunken slapper in a Washington alleyway? She accepted the extenuating circumstances, but it's obviously not done us any good."
"No," said White, "well, maybe finding out exactly who did that to you will help."
"Yes," said Arthur slowly, "that would help a great deal."