‘Thank you, Kip,’ said a quiet and restrained Marilyn Culver. ‘Jed would’ve loved this.’ She gestured around the room with her champagne glass. She’d hardly touched a drop in over an hour.

‘No, Marilyn, he wouldn’t,’ replied Kipper. He too scanned the roomful of ordinary people, none of them donors or players or significant for any reason beyond their humble contribution to the life of the nation. ‘He would have wanted to know what these assholes could possibly do for us.’

He finished by leaning towards her and speaking quietly in a passable imitation of Culver’s Louisiana drawl. A few people, standing close by, trying not to be obvious about eavesdropping, turned towards him. But people, especially in Seattle, were well used to the President’s informal manners. Marilyn squeezed his forearm in thanks.

‘It’s still nice for the kids to be here,’ she said. ‘They had a very hard time of it after their father died. Some of the things people were saying about him. The most terrible lies, Kip. You know how kids can be, how they take these things to heart.’

Kipper fixed Culver’s widow with his sternest, most presidential look.

‘Marilyn,’ he told her, ‘you are to pay no heed to any of that bullshit. Jed had enemies because he sought them out. He was a guy who knew right from wrong and he wasn’t afraid to act on that knowledge. A guy like that, he gets people offside. But he does it for the right reasons. A lot of the things Jed did for this country, people will never know about. You and the kids will never know either. That’s just the way it has to be. But what people can know is that I thought Jed Culver was a good man, and he did the right thing.’

He had to hug Marilyn then, because she teared up and all but fell into his arms.

‘Oh God, Kip. I miss the Jedi Master,’ she said, her voice muffled by tears and the lapel of his suit where she’d buried her face.

Kipper caught his wife’s eye across the drawing room. Barb sent him an unspoken query, asking if he was all right. Did he need her to come and rescue him? The President of the United States shook his head and patted down Marilyn Culver’s hair.

‘It’s okay, buddy,’ he said. ‘You let it all out.’

He had to fend off his protocol chief with a fierce glare at one point, but most people were cool enough to give them some space, even in a very crowded reception room. These were all good people, thought Kip. Real people. The country could do no better than to entrust its future to them.