IF IAN GENUINELY saw himself as the next C, Kate thought he was going a strange way about getting there. Even by his own standards, his outfit for the breakfast meeting at the foreign secretary’s grand stucco residence on Carlton House Terrace was eccentric. He’d grown his hair long so that his blond curls tumbled over the collar of a shirt that might have been appropriate for an evening in the Caribbean. His black jeans were ripped above the knee, his ubiquitous suede Chelsea boots scuffed and dirty, as if he had walked there across a field. He wore a black cardigan, half done up to lend his cry for attention – or possibly help – an air of vague respectability.

Perhaps he thought he was James Bond. This certainly appeared to be the message he was conveying to the foreign secretary, of a man too busy, important and, frankly, dangerous to bother with the conventional Whitehall dress code.

What was more surprising was the way Suzy was watching him. Even while he warmed them up, as they waited for the foreign secretary, with the story of his last Ironman event – he had done many and could talk about them at vast length – she barely took her eyes off him. My God, Kate thought, there really is no accounting for taste.

Sir Alan stood with his back to them, looking out over the Mall. Kate thought he held his emotional pain in his upper body as if it were a physical affliction, which she supposed in the end it was. She tried to think of something that might comfort or distract him, but he seemed far removed from everything around him, as if he was preparing to make the journey to the other side with his wife.

As a superior, she reflected, he had always been broadly supportive: encouraging when she got it right, steely when she screwed up. She was far from beyond wanting to please him. For a moment, she thought of how it would be if Ian managed to claw his way into Sir Alan’s chair. Intolerable, really. Unimaginable. She’d have to quit. But now that her family was supported by her salary alone, what, exactly, would she do?

Their ‘breakfast’, which consisted of croissants and other pastries, fruit salad, orange juice and two large pots of coffee, lay untouched in the centre of the table and as Ian droned on and wretchedly on about his training regime – ‘You have to cycle for two hours before dawn or you never get enough in’ – Kate had to restrain herself from getting stuck in. It was hardly a scientific revelation that chronic sleep deprivation left one absolutely ravenous.