The car must have stopped because she moved her eye away from the sight and turned to look at me. ‘Henry warned me you might have lost your nerve,’ she said. ‘I didn’t believe him. You’ve worked for us for over twenty years, Paul.’

‘Based on what, though?’ I said.

She went back to her previous position.

‘I never lied to you about the big things. And you’re hardly in a position to lecture me about sustaining a civil war. Your government—’

‘My government. Not me.’

‘So whose side are you on then?’ she said, and the false politeness vanished for a moment.

‘My own,’ I said.

‘I see. Just a neutral bystander, condemning everyone else from your position of complete superiority . . . and inactivity?’

‘You’re all as bad as each other,’ I said. ‘I refuse to take sides any longer.’

‘But you must, Paul! Don’t you see? You must! There’s no room for sitting on the fence in this world. One side will win, and it will change how millions of people live. You have to take sides, and act on your beliefs. And I believe we will help this country.’

There was a mad glare in her eyes. I didn’t want to hear how killing the PM was going to help - no doubt she had her answers. She’d always been good with the abstracts. ‘So that’s it?’ I said. ‘The cause above all, and screw anyone who gets in the way?’ I forced myself onto my feet and began trudging across the room towards her. She didn’t even flinch.

‘What’s to stop me from killing you?’ I asked.

She looked up, surprised, then calmly put her eye back to the sight as though I were a child.

‘Because you loved me,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you still do, in some way. I am what you have believed in for most of your life, and you can’t destroy me. You will watch me finish this and then you will leave here, and we will never speak again. You will continue your work in London with Sasha.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘I won’t be—’

There was a sudden lift in the noise of the crowd outside. ‘Here’s the test, Paul,’ she said. ‘Here it is now. Which side will you take?’