‘—purporting to be of you, and all the other evidence, which they suggest they would bring with them, including detail of the many financial payments made over the years.’ He was shaking his head now. ‘But, ultimately, none of these things was material. The crucial fact is that an offer to defect of this kind is a priceless intelligence jewel. We had to pursue it.’

‘Without my knowledge?’

‘The foreign secretary was fully informed.’

His eyes bored into her. ‘In all honesty, that is not the kind of mealy-mouthed crap I expected of you.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Prime Minister.’

‘And neither is that! For God’s sake, Kate. I thought you were a good egg. Is this your friend Imogen Conrad’s doing?’

‘She’s not my friend.’

‘You could have fooled me.’

‘You may recall she had an affair with my husband.’

He shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’ He got up and paced behind his desk. He picked up a squidgy stress ball and pumped it hard in his fingers.

His special adviser had curled herself up again. ‘No one will believe it,’ she purred soothingly. ‘You’ve wanted to get rid of Meg for an age.’

‘She’s never coming back. Never! Bloody bitch.’

Kate’s experience of government at the highest level had been of such exaggerated formality that the Prime Minister’s relentless foul mouth was a shock, if not necessarily a surprise. It made her reflect on just how well he hid his true nature behind that easy-going affable exterior. ‘You know what the worst of it is?’ He was looking at Kate, waiting for an answer.

‘There are quite a few aspects of this that would qualify as “the worst of it”, Prime Minister.’

‘All right, drop the “Prime Minister” crap. It’s not very authentic.’ He leant back against his desk, tossing the stress ball into the air and catching it. ‘The worst of it is that I sense you believed it. You thought it was true.’ He picked up two more balls from his desk and started to juggle. He was rather good at it.

‘Believing what you see is a basic human instinct. But I’d like to think I’m smarter than that. It wasn’t my job to form a view either way on the video.’ Kate reflected as she spoke that she had, which had perhaps been a mistake. ‘In the end, for us, it was simple: we couldn’t turn down this kind of offer. Everything else is incidental.’

‘Not for me it isn’t.’

‘Look, I’m extremely sorry about this leak. I don’t know what happened. It occurred within an hour of our meeting with the foreign secretary this morning and the fact that it happened is absolutely inexplicable to me.’

‘I doubt that. And, if so, you don’t spend enough time around politicians.’

‘I don’t see how Meg Simpson benefits—’