She looks up sharply as Harry stares ahead at the spot on the wall.

‘Ben wouldn’t do that . . .’

‘No? Then why hasn’t he fired it yet?’

‘We’re doing other skills sessions,’ she says in explanation. ‘Physical training and unarmed combat.’

‘I’ve seen,’ Roland says carefully, ‘and he’s hardly applying himself.’

‘And Harry and I have both been conditioned by the jobs we did in the services and police,’ she pushes on doggedly. ‘Ben doesn’t have any of that.’

Roland goes to reply but stops and sits back down heavily. ‘He looks awful,’ he says quietly. ‘Is he sleeping?’

‘No,’ Safa sighs, shaking her head.

‘Then tell him,’ Roland groans, rubbing his face that shows the stress of days spent waiting and worrying.

‘No,’ Safa replies instantly.

‘Safa,’ Roland pleads. ‘You have to do something. Tell him what Steph did and take away his desire to go home. Force a reaction. Provoke him so he can channel that anger.’

‘Yeah, why not?’ Safa says with disgust etched on her face. ‘We’ll take a man already suffering and make it worse. Yeah, that’ll be such a nice thing to do.’

‘At some point, which will be sooner rather than later, we’re going to have to make the difficult decision that Ben just isn’t right for this project.’

‘He will be fine. I promise.’

‘Okay,’ Roland says, sensing the temper in her is threatening to come up again. ‘Fine. Just keep me posted.’

Neither of them know where he goes and they have no idea of anything Roland does away from the bunker and although they are curious, they are both too deeply conditioned by their former lives to question such workings. You focus on your job and let someone else worry about where the pens come from.

Safa was a uniformed armed police officer. Every bit of kit she carried came from somewhere else and was organised by someone else. Her service sidearm was maintained by someone else. The vehicles were serviced by someone else. Her uniform was organised by someone else. The canteen was stocked by someone else. Even the bullets for the weapons were sorted by someone else. She was there to protect and worry about the finite details of her job.

It was a single act but it was enough to shape Safa’s life from that point on. It seemed like the whole world became obsessed with Ben Ryder after Holborn and even more so when it came out that he was the same man who killed five gang members when he was seventeen. Then Steph tainted it, but not for Safa. She had seen greatness and knew without doubt there were decent, honourable people in the world and it was the essence of Ben that she held close when she was being touched and groped in the private rooms in Downing Street.