He showed her the small room as well – ‘for comparison’. The more he said, the more he sounded like an estate agent. In his fantasy, which he had already replayed many times, she would be so intoxicated by the excitement of the evening, of having mingled with so many powerful, famous people, that she’d be desperate to leap into bed with him. But he knew that was what it was, no more than a fantasy. All the same, he ached to see her naked skin, and to touch her.

‘You choose. I don’t mind,’ he said needlessly. His heart thumped against his chest.

She put her bag down on the double bed and smiled. Should he make his move? As he hesitated, she moved towards the door to get her case, and he realized she was waiting for him to leave.

He went into the living room and sat on the sofa. Was she coming back? He put on the TV to drown out the sound of his blood pumping round his body.

He was still in a state of excitement from the evening at Downing Street. He had had a whole two minutes with the prime minister, with Nasima looking on.

‘You’re very good on camera – you’ve got the knack,’ the PM had told him. ‘So I rather fear we’re going to be ruthlessly exploiting you over the coming weeks. Are you getting everything you need?’

‘Oh, yes, thanks.’ He had started to describe the flat, then quickly stopped when he saw the PM wasn’t paying any attention: his eyes had flicked to Nasima.

‘And what do you do?’

‘Oh, I’ve put everything on hold to support Sahim.’

Her well-chosen answer pleased the PM, and Sam even more.

‘Well, then, he’s very lucky – and so are we that he’s got you. You know what they say, behind every great man and all that . . .’

But by then someone was at his ear and he was gone.

Sam turned to her and grinned, delighted by the PM’s reaction, but her face had gone blank, just as it had when he’d first set eyes on her. She shrugged. ‘Well, I guessed it was what he wanted to hear.’

In the car back to the flat she had hardly said a word. To fill the silence he thanked her for being there, twice, to which she had merely nodded acknowledgement. Perhaps she was tired. He was exhausted too, but the adrenalin rush from the evening – rubbing shoulders with the mighty, her by his side – was almost over-powering. He had never felt like this before.

‘I hope you don’t mind that everyone thought we were – you know.’

‘No, it was fine.’