‘We were told to destroy our papers when we reached Zagreb in Croatia. I did not want to destroy my papers. We were told we must.’

‘That’s because having no papers makes it easier to stay in this country. And easier to claim asylum. And easier to say that you come from a place where there is a war. Even if you don’t.’

I waited.

‘Tirana,’ she said. ‘My home is Tirana.’

‘Albania,’ I said. I held out my hand. ‘I’m Max,’ I said. ‘May I know your name?’

The immigration officer was suddenly by my side, barking with fury.

‘You do not have the right to interrogate this woman! You make me ashamed to be British!’

My hand was still there.

The young woman shook it.

‘Aurora,’ she said. ‘My name is Aurora.’

‘Nobody’s going to hurt you in this country,’ I said.

She nodded.

The women were filing out of the room.

‘The coach is waiting,’ bristled the woman from immigration who was ashamed to be British.

‘And what did you do in Tirana, Aurora?’ I said.

We both stood up. It was time to go. But we smiled at each other.

‘I was a nurse,’ she said.

A roar came up from the street. I went to the window and stood by Edie’s side. As we looked down, a crowd of protestors surrounded a large white coach. A bottle bounced off the massive windscreen. A brick shattered it. I heard a cheer that chilled my blood. It was the sound of a mob that had just got its first scent of blood.

‘Christ. Where did this lot come from?’

‘There’s a march in support of refugees from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square,’ Edie said. ‘Some of them must have gone for a wander. I don’t see any coppers down there.’

‘There are only two of them,’ I said.

We headed for the lifts, hit the call button a few times and then decided to take the stairs. They were full of our people running down to the street. Uniformed and plain clothes, all floors and all ranks.

Some of them had already made it out of the double glass doors that mark the entrance to West End Central but they had not got much further because the protestors were everywhere, swarming around the waiting coach and all over the nine stone steps that lead from our front door to the pavement. The steps are divided by a metal railing and as the crowd surged for the coach it buckled and collapsed, taking police and protestors down with it.

And then I saw him.

Troy was forcing his way up the steps, his illustrated features twisted with something like pleasure, steadily elbowing his way through the mob as if he planned to enter West End Central.

But that wasn’t his target.

He had seen the two uniformed officers go down among those that fell with the metal railing.