A half-second pause, then a face swam into focus on his screen. He had not expected it to be a woman at the other end, especially not someone like this. Bespectacled, articulate and well-spoken, she introduced herself as Niamh. To Luke, she looked like a sales director for a multinational corporation, and for a moment he wondered if the boffins had blundered and given him the wrong number. But she didn’t hesitate: she got straight down to business.

‘Don’t get any ideas just yet,’ she said, in a crisp, businesslike tone. Not aggressive, just icy and to the point. ‘We need to know a lot more about you.’ Luke couldn’t remember the last time he’d found himself in an interview situation like this, but he was primed for it.

‘You got my 23andMe genetic test results I sent you, yes?’ he replied.

‘We did. Nobody’s perfect, Steve.’ Was this a joke? It was hard to tell, but no, she wasn’t smiling. ‘So your origins are four per cent Turkish,’ she continued. ‘How do you feel about that?’

Time for drama school. Luke adopted an expression of concentrated disgust. ‘Sick as a parrot, to be honest. I hadn’t expected that.’

Infinitesimally, he saw her expression soften. ‘It’s okay, Steve. Like I said, nobody’s perfect. You’re ninety per cent plus Aryan and not a trace of Yid in you, so that’s a start. And Moscow have vouched for you.’ Then, just like that, the icy stare was back. ‘But right now we don’t give a shit about any of that. We’re having this conversation because there are things in your head that we need to know.’

Luke scratched an imaginary itch on his temple, just below his hairline, but said nothing.

‘Can you still hear me?’ Niamh asked. He nodded. ‘Good. So before we agree to meet I’ve got some questions for you …’

And so it began. Interrogation by remote connection. A flurry of questions, some genuine, some not, all designed to throw him off-guard. Who was your commanding officer in SRR? What date was your court martial? When did you first log on to 8Chan? When did you start following White Power?

Luke never blinked. They had prepared him well for this and there was always the voice in his ear, feeding him all the right answers. Then came the one that floored him: a deliberate bear trap.

‘What did you make of the ideas in Craig Stephens’s manifesto?’

‘Craig Stephens?’ he’d repeated, playing for time.

‘Yes. That’s what I said,’ she snapped, scowling now. ‘Craig Stephens. Don’t tell me you haven’t even read his manifesto, The Burning Towers?’