He chuckled drily. ‘One young lad invited me to join him and his friends back at their room for “some fun”. Turned out they’d taken my lesson to heart: they’d paid a girl to strip and lie there naked while they all stood round and wanked on her.’

There was a brief silence while everyone decided whether to be interested or shocked or coolly unfazed. Suze was no longer leaning over towards Chris. She glanced round at the others, trying to gauge their reactions.

‘And you – what did you do?’ demanded Big Mac.

At last Chris heard the personal hostility in Big Mac’s tone. ‘I went back to my hotel room and watched porn on my laptop,’ he said evenly.

‘How old were these guys, on average?’ Callum asked. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.

Chris sat a little straighter in his seat, lighting up at the pleasure of talking to Callum. ‘Uh, the youngest was about seventeen, oldest mid thirties, I guess. But mostly late teens, early twenties.’

‘And how do you feel about these men, these boys, being exposed to that sort of scenario so young?’

This was something Tamsin usually admired about Callum – the interest he took in other people, the quiet, intelligent way he collected information, asking his careful questions, storing up the answers to think about later, at length. He rarely offered personal opinions during casual conversation. But just now this trait struck Tamsin as bloodless, even a little unfair – as if he were trying to catch Chris out over a subject on which he, Callum, had no real authority.

‘Obviously it’s not ideal. But to be frank, it’s better than the alternative – which is jail, for most of them. Most of these young guys, they’re illiterate, they’ve got problems with money, family problems. The army offers them a way out of all that.’

‘Some people might feel that that’s a rather defeatist position,’ Callum said neutrally. ‘Sorry. I’m playing devil’s advocate. Well, I sort of am.’

‘I disagree. I strongly disagree.’ Chris’s ardour was a sharp contrast to Callum’s coolness. He wasn’t angry, but his dark eyes were big with conviction. ‘I know what I’m saying might not be all that palatable, but at least it’s realistic.’ (Tamsin murmured in automatic approval: ‘realistic’ was something of a trigger-word for her, an uncontested good, regardless of context.) ‘Fact of the matter is that the army educates them, it provides financial guidance, pastoral care … It isn’t perfect, but it’s by far the best of a pretty shabby set of options. And in the end, when you look at the camaraderie, the sense of purpose, the brotherhood – I’m really not exaggerating when I say that joining the army is the best decision that most of these guys will ever make.’ Chris nodded fervently.