Agency

90 The Work

And this has all come out because Wetmark feared he’d been indiscreet with me, about you, in the Denisovan Embassy, after my meeting with Lev?” Netherton asked, in Shaftesbury Avenue, a few drops of rain beginning to fall.

“Indeed,” said Lowbeer. “Because he’d referred to me as ‘mythical.’”

“Would you say he was overreacting, then?”

“I assume,” Lowbeer said, “that when you had that conversation, which I monitored, he was intoxicated. Subsequent amnesia left him partially unable to recall exactly what he might have said to you. The anxiety for which he habitually self-medicates then drove him to phone me, once he was relatively sober.”

Netherton, just then glancing into the window of a bookshop, saw himself grimace, the scenario she was describing being quite familiar. “But you believe him?”

“I’m assuming, in this one case, that he’s truthfully relating things he’s been told.”

“You don’t think it’s Yu—” He caught himself. “This person we’ve discussed? Disinformation?”

“It would be unwise not to consider the possibility of disinformation,” she said, “but I doubt it, now that I’ve had a closer look at who’s involved. Our person of interest has evidently been quite active lately, but I doubt Westmarch has ever heard his name. Often, when considering the klept, that which seems too conveniently coincidental proves to have been a function of their being essentially a small, highly cohesive group. Though that can also make for cleaner cautery on our part, or even for an element of surprise.”

Netherton shivered, warm as his jacket was keeping him.