Jonathan scowled. ‘I was going on holiday. I booked it months ago. It’s not a crime to have a holiday, is it? Was I supposed to pay out all that money for nothing? Anyway, I’ve lost it now, because thanks to your intervention I’ve missed my plane. What happens now? Are you going to refund me the cost of my flight? And the cost of the night in Spain I’ll have missed if I fly out tomorrow?’ He was almost spitting with rage. ‘This is an outrageous infringement of my rights as a citizen, to be prevented from leaving the country for a perfectly innocent purpose.’

‘My client has not been charged with any offence,’ the lawyer said, fidgeting as she spoke. ‘You are interfering with the rights of an innocent member of the public and we will be seeking compensation.’

Geraldine glanced at the same solicitor who had accompanied Jonathan at his previous interview. She looked about sixteen, although she was old enough to have qualified in her profession. Her mousy brown hair looked dull and she seemed lethargic, as though she was present only in body. She was young to be taking so little interest in her work and Geraldine wondered if she suffered from depression, or perhaps she had recently split up with her boyfriend. With a faint sigh, she returned her gaze to Jonathan.

‘We asked you not to leave York,’ she reminded him. ‘Why were you attempting to leave the country? Surely you must have realised we would receive an alert?’

‘I just told you,’ he replied, his voice growing strident with irritation. ‘I was taking a holiday. That’s not a crime, is it? Well? Is it?’ He leaned forward in his chair and glared at her.

‘There’s no need to raise your voice,’ Ian said quietly.

‘I’m not bloody raising my voice, but you don’t seem to want to hear what I’m saying. I went to the airport because I was flying to Spain. I booked this holiday months ago and so I went. What’s wrong with that? It’s not as if I was trying to avoid being questioned. If you check my booking, you’ll see it was made months before any of this happened. And you had me stopped and brought here like – like a common criminal.’

‘We asked you not to leave York,’ Geraldine repeated patiently.

‘So you keep saying, but it’s a free country and you haven’t charged me with anything, which means I’m entitled to go away if I want to. Don’t forget, it’s taxes from people like me that pay your wages.’

Geraldine was sure that Ian was thinking the same as her, but neither of them pointed out that Jonathan was no longer paying income tax because he had lost his job.