He replied in a couple of seconds. I am in Berlin. See you at 10 a.m. on Monday. Head for Alexanderplatz. Do not be late.

Kate sent back: Monday too soon. I can’t make the wheels turn faster. Let’s say Tuesday at 10 a.m.

It was a long wait before she finally received a reply: All right. No later, or the deal is off. And you’re welcome, re Estonia.

Maddy was at the door of her office again. ‘The PM’s just about to make a statement.’ Kate joined the rest of her team in front of the big TV screen in the centre of the office, which was switched to Sky News. The prime minister swept up to a makeshift podium in Downing Street. ‘I will make a full statement on the events in Estonia to the House this afternoon . . . but it is our understanding that if the Russians did intend to provoke unrest on the border, as some have alleged, then that threat is now receding. The protests have petered out and we do not believe there is a meaningful threat to Estonia’s integrity and security. I have spoken to the Russian president directly this morning and he assured me that this is indeed the case, though he did ask that the Russian minority in Narva and in eastern Estonia be adequately protected, which is a perfectly reasonable request.’ There was a pause as he looked up from his script and directly into the camera. ‘I take this as further evidence of the advantage of a cautious, nuanced and balanced attitude to international relations. Nobody wants to rush into a war over a country few have heard of. That’s the rub of it, like it or not. Thank you. Good day to you!’

He turned and walked back in through the door of Number Ten. ‘That’s going to make the Estonians feel good,’ Julie said. ‘He’s a lot more bloody Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.’

Kate didn’t reply. She picked up her bag and went to the lifts, trying to shake the sense that she had just been manipulated in a way she couldn’t yet quite articulate.

7

DR WISEMAN WAS a man of angular leanness, with a pair of square reading glasses that he took on and off as he alternated between asking questions and writing down her answers long-hand in a huge exercise book in the centre of his wood and chrome desk. He had a wide forehead, curly dark hair and a steady, level gaze. He reminded Kate of her first tutor at Cambridge, and her faltering attempts to explain herself were an uncomfortable echo of those encounters.

‘It’s really hard to describe,’ she said. ‘I usually feel all right when I first get up in the morning. I think. When I’ve slept. But then, as I said, I’m not sleeping well, and sometimes barely at all. In any event, once I get into the flow of the day, it’s as if someone has crept up and injected some kind of diabolical chemical into my bloodstream, adrenalin or cortisol – or whatever. And then I just feel . . . awful.’