As he stepped off the train, the short walk up to the daylight seemed interminable. Charlie felt himself propelled by the pace of the crowd into a speed that was half a walk, half a jog, and gave up trying to apologise to the people who he nudged with his suitcase. He reached the station’s entrance and blinked in the daylight, bracing himself for whatever sight might greet him on College Green. He heard it before he saw it. Although he could easily have just turned left and headed into his office in Portcullis House, which was connected by an underground tunnel to the Palace of Westminster and meant he didn’t have to go through the above-ground entrance into Parliament itself, he felt himself compelled by the crowds, and some deeper desire for information, to turn the other way, towards the sound and sight of the demonstration.

College Green, which was adjacent to the Houses of Parliament, was the hub for demonstrations about a whole range of political issues, and was home to various camps at any given time; some semi-permanent, and some more temporary. Charlie had become accustomed to the various banners, tents and flags that often filled the space, and became even more crowded when the various national media outlets flooded in to report on stories of note. Often, it was difficult to differentiate between the paraphernalia of the many different causes represented outside the House, but as Charlie drew closer, there was no mistaking the vibrant yellow ribbons and clothes, and the ringing chants of the CF campaigners. Standing out against the backdrop of historic Westminster, voices ringing in the morning air, they made an imposing group.

‘NHS make CF drugs free! Let our children live and breathe! NHS make CF drugs free! Let our children live and breathe!’

The chant, and, even more heartbreakingly, the banners with pictures of young child CF patients on them, cut Charlie to the bone. And suddenly, inexplicably, he knew they were right. It didn’t matter the cost, this had to be something that was voted through, for the sake of every child in the country with cystic fibrosis. He’d been wrong to question his instincts; he knew that now. He should have put Harry and his family first all along, and the thousands of other patients. But he still had no idea how to fix it.

‘And if I’m not mistaken, here comes one of the figures at the centre of the debate about CF drugs, MP for Willowbury and Stavenham, Charlie Thorpe…’ the reporter’s voice cut into Charlie’s thoughts, which, unseeingly, had guided his feet towards the eye of the storm. ‘Mr Thorpe, have you any comment on the current stalemate between government and the pharmaceutical companies?’