He had slept surprisingly well both nights, kipping down in the windowless, one-bed overnight room with its grey airline-style washbag and towel laid out on the bed, ready for use at short notice. The place was so small as to be almost monastic, and the shower room was miles away down a corridor, but none of this bothered Luke. Angela had asked him for the keys to his flat, then sent someone round to collect a change of clothes. Elise had not been there when they’d called.

Luke was glad the mission was finally getting into gear. It was the distraction he needed. It meant he had successfully managed to avoid thinking about Elise for almost the entire weekend. But not quite. At one point, just past 3 a.m. on the Sunday morning, he woke up in an agony of self-recrimination as his thoughts crowded in on him. Why hadn’t he made more of an effort to get back from Iran for her mother’s funeral? Because it was obvious to him now: that glaring omission, even more than his unforgivable transgression over there, had been the single most destructive element in the slow-motion breakdown of their relationship. It was not just that he, Luke, had let her down in her hour of need. His absence at that crucial juncture had provided Hugo Squires with exactly the entrée he so craved. And Luke had no one to blame but himself.

He had lain awake for an hour, processing what had happened, what had gone wrong. On top of that, there was Jenny Li to worry about. True, he had been given no choice but to return home without her, but it still felt wrong, very wrong. And then, just after 4 a.m., he’d got a grip and reminded himself of the need to focus on the mission, the op. This was no time to be jogging backwards over all the things in his private life that could have been.

In the morning, just after breakfast, he had got straight back into character, transforming himself into the imaginary Steve Keane. Wardrobe arrived first, dressing him in black jeans with turn-ups above laced boots, thick belt with a large buckle, and a grease-stained T-shirt tight enough to show off his muscles.

‘Any update on Jenny?’ he’d asked Angela, as he sat in a chair that morning, feeling somewhat self-conscious as he was fussed over by the plastics people. They were giving his face a different look, just in case anyone on the other end of the video call should identify the real Luke Carlton from his recent trip to Lithuania.

Angela was still in the boiler suit, but she’d pulled on a sweatshirt with a big NYU logo over the top.