‘I mean just that. We have a mole. And I’m not for a moment suggesting that your friend is tied up in it … All I know is that we have to be careful about who we say what to. Besides, if there is information available that could be useful to our work, I want to be sure we have access to it, without jeopardising anything else. You understand?’

She nodded.

He refilled their glasses. ‘I’m glad you challenged me on it, though. It’s admirable. I know you young ones like to follow the rules, but take it from me: that isn’t always the best way to get things done. You know? Sometimes you have to use your initiative. I mean, this is national security we’re talking about, not a school exam. You don’t get prefect points in the real world, not when lives are at stake.’

He was full of shit, but she knew she needed to help him – or rather, she needed him to believe she would. Rumours had started flying by that point about an opening for a long-term tenure in New York attached to the UN, and despite only having been on one posting, she reckoned she could feasibly apply, if she put in the hours, reminding her superiors of how keen and able she was.

She had no way of knowing how far in over her head she was being dragged.

When the exhaustion kicked in a few weeks later, she brushed it off as a natural reaction to an intense period of readjustment. It was a shock coming back to London from a culture so wildly different to her own. Going from that life to this, it was enough to explain away the sudden mid-morning slumps at her desk, the evenings she found herself passing out on the sofa before dinner, Tom reading a book or strumming endless bloody chords beside her when all she longed for was silence. And then the sickness started, the gassy, bloated sensation that made her both ravenous and unable to nibble more than a mouthful of anything with a more complex flavour than toasted cheese.

She had watched women at work, brilliant women, slide down the ladder after they had children; you could almost see it, the drive they once had draining out of them, like blood seeping from an open wound until there was no life left in them.

‘I take it this wasn’t planned?’ the doctor asked gently as she stared back, tears welling defiantly in her eyes, the words ringing in her ears: You’re pregnant.

‘No.’

‘So you’ll need some time to think through the options …’

‘I don’t want it,’ she said, her voice absolute.

The doctor nodded thoughtfully. ‘I understand. But you might feel differently, given time … It’s a big decision and there is no harm in taking a couple of days to think it through …’

‘I don’t want it,’ she repeated.