“I’ve had a bloody awful couple of weeks which, yes, have been terribly busy too. I’m sick to the back teeth of a lot of things, and I thought it would be good to see you. A lot better than anything else I’ve been doing. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“Better.” Joel leaned back as Rahim and the waiter arrived, bearing a small banquet between them. “Good Lord. Are you particularly hungry?”

“I’ve seen you eat,” Aaron pointed out. “We’ll finish it, don’t worry.”

The food was as good as ever. Joel dug gleefully into an aromatic slow-cooked mutton dish, made indescribable noises over the curd with spinach, and had a religious experience with the fish, which was served whole and rubbed red with spices, then fried till the skin was crisp perfection and the flesh flaked effortlessly off the bone. Aaron ate with quieter enjoyment, watching him.

He’d never taken a man out for a meal before. Well, of course he had: colleagues, old friends. But he’d never taken a man for dinner as others might take a girl.

He wasn’t doing that now, of course. His situation hadn’t changed and he wouldn’t be going back to Pentonville Road with Joel. He was just eating with him, watching his eyes light up at flavours, enjoying his pleasure.

Joel cleared his first plateful like a starving wolf and leaned back. “I am taking a breather, and then I’m going to eat literally everything else and not move for days,” he said. “Amazing. Consider yourself forgiven.”

“Good to know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Aaron hesitated. “About what?”

“The hell’s own time you’ve been having. Whatever it is that made you so explosively annoyed that you felt compelled to arrange this dinner at a few hours’ notice, presumably as a ‘go-to-the-devil’ gesture to someone. We don’t have to talk about it, of course. I’d be perfectly happy with witty banter, or simply stuffing my face. But if you want to...” He let that hang.

Aaron did want to talk about it, all of it. He wished he could.

“There has been quite a lot,” he said carefully. “The business we discussed last time—I won’t talk about that. A frustrating case, too. But then, today, my superior told me I’m being put on a new job.” He had to force the word out. “Unions.”

“Unions?”

“There’s a possible strike being fomented. It’s our role to keep an eye on the organisers to make sure it’s all being done legally.”

“Hang around in an intimidating way, breathe down people’s necks, make heavy-handed threats, pretend the organisers are in the direct pay of Moscow, and bring the hobnailed boot of the law down on anyone you can at the shade of an excuse?”