‘Think about it, Geordie. Seguma’s enemies will be even more motivated to get rid of him now.’

‘You ask me, they’d be doing the world a favour,’ Kember muttered. ‘But it ain’t gonna happen.’

Bowman turned to him. ‘You don’t think the threat is real?’

‘We’re talking about a few protestors in some African backwater,’ Kember argued. ‘They’re not exactly Delta Force. There’s no way they’ve got the organisation to plan a hit.’

Bowman shook his head, slowly. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘Bollocks,’ Kember said. ‘There’s no threat. You heard what they said at the briefing yesterday. Five thousand officers on the ground, plus sniper teams on the rooftops, the guys from Five and Six and the private security teams. No way anyone could get close enough to slot the principal.’

Bowman didn’t reply. The grating flared up between his temples once more. There was a strange tingling sensation in his muscles, like a million invisible ants crawling under his skin. Every cell in his body screamed at him to make the sickness go away, before it became unbearable.

With the pain came the first terrible murmurs of memory, the resurfacing of the nightmarish images he had tried desperately to forget. Like the echo of a bad trip, creeping up on him when he least expected it. Except these visions never faded away. They grew stronger, stalking Bowman. He remembered stepping through the front door. The stillborn quiet in the air, where there should have been laughter, noise. He remembered, too, the knife discarded on the carpet. The blood splashed across the kitchen floor. The bodies . . .

Bowman closed his eyes, as if he could somehow factory-reset his brain. As if it was that simple. Then the pain stabbed at him again, and he knew he couldn’t last much longer without a pill.

Kember was watching him closely, a quizzical look on his mug.

‘Fella? You all right?’

‘Fine,’ Bowman said. He could feel the sweat running freely down his back, seeping through his shirt. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t look it,’ the Geordie said. ‘You ask me, you look like a bag of shite.’

‘It’s nothing.’

Kember shook his head. ‘I know what your problem is.’

Bowman tensed. Did Kember know he was using drugs? Or was that just the paranoia talking?

If he knows about my addiction, I’m done for.

‘It’s all that processed meat you’ve been eating,’ Kember went on. ‘No good for your body. Plant-based, that’s the way you want to go. Clean all that crap out of your system.’

‘Yeah,’ Bowman said non-committally. ‘Maybe.’

The pain intensified. Like holes being drilled into the sides of his skull. Nausea clogged the back of his throat. His hands were trembling. Bowman realised he was perspiring heavily.

He stood up. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

‘Where the fuck are you going?’ Kember asked.

‘Gotta take a piss.’