Today’s visit by the Minister had rattled him, he had to admit it. In his time, he had been required to carry out some questionable tasks, but this one took the biscuit. The thought of the possible repercussions from what Bill Latimer had asked him to do – and there was no mistaking what it was – made the collar of his shirt seem all of a sudden two or three sizes too small for him. Even now, a good hour after the Minister had left, his mouth was still so dry he found it hard to swallow.

It was true that the thing in need of solving was partly his problem, too. He had always feared that the nationalist zeal of his early years would some day come back to haunt him. But there was nothing ghostly about the peril he suddenly found himself facing.

He rose heavily from his desk and walked to the window and stood with his fists thrust deep in the pockets of his suit jacket. The sharp-edged brightness of the April day was beginning to fade. He gazed gloomily at the row of red-brick eighteenth-century houses on the far side of the road. In one of them the Duke of Wellington had been born. He paced back slowly to his desk. How many Brits were aware that Wellington was an Irishman? He was their hero, one of the class that had sought over the centuries to crush the spirit of this country. That project had failed, and Ned Gallagher was proud to have made his contribution to the fight that had ensured that failure.

All the same, the war wasn’t over, only suspended. The forfeiture of the Six Counties was an open wound in the body politic. Until they were got back, and the British driven out of Northern Ireland for good, people like himself, the fíor-Gaels, the true Irish, would never sheathe the Claíomh Solais, the shining sword of freedom, nor would they—

Stop right there, Ned, he told himself, stop right there. This was no time to be indulging in the rebel sentiments of the old days. He was the Secretary General of the government, the head of the civil service, and one of the most powerful men in the country – indeed, the most powerful, according to some, himself included, though he’d never dream of letting on that he thought so.