‘To be a soldier,’ Ben said. ‘Something I could be proud of, as a member of the best fighting force in the world. Not to be played like a pawn to carry out your illegal secret dirty deeds and hidden agendas.’

‘You never were much of a team player, were you, Benedict?’

‘Depends on what the game is,’ Ben replied. ‘I didn’t have a taste for yours, that’s for damn sure.’

‘I remember we had this discussion before, once upon a time.’

‘When you called me in for a private meeting, just like this one, and tried to recruit me into your cosy little assassination club. Yes, I remember that too. It was the last time you and I spoke.’

‘You’d have been perfect material for Group 13,’ the colonel said. ‘A wasted opportunity.’

‘For me it was a wake-up call,’ Ben said. ‘The day I realised I didn’t want to be part of it any longer. Any of it.’

‘And so you turned to the bottle instead,’ the colonel sneered. ‘What an ending to such an exemplary career. To leave under a cloud like that. I was disappointed in you, Benedict.’

Those were deeply unhappy memories for Ben, who had sunk to some of the lowest ebbs of his life back then. His heavy drinking, at times bordering on if not quite full-blown alcoholism then something very nearly like it, had been a throwback to the wilder period of his youth before joining the military, which on leaving SAS had then carried through into the early days of his freelance career.

He never talked about those darker times in his life, not even to his closest friend Jeff. Speaking openly about them now with Carstairs felt strange, like a confession, but also deeply cathartic.

‘It was a tough decision for me to quit the regiment. I’ll admit, I struggled with it. I’d given it everything I’d got. Devoted my whole life to it for thirteen years. Now I look back and I realise I have you to thank for shattering my illusions. Getting out was the best thing I ever did.’

Carstairs gave another of his sardonic little smiles and waved his hand around the room. ‘And yet here you are, returned home like the prodigal son. Don’t act as if you’re not here by choice. A man of your talents surely wouldn’t have allowed himself to be picked off the street by the likes of Kendrick and Brown if you hadn’t felt even just the slightest curiosity as to what this is about. Go on, admit it. You couldn’t resist, could you?’

‘I’m curious,’ Ben said. ‘You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble unless you had a pretty serious crisis on your hands.’

Carstairs’ smile melted and was replaced by a grim frown. ‘You’re not wrong about the gravity of the situation, I’m afraid.’