Brandeis raised a finger. ‘If I could come in here, our reading of the reaction in Washington suggests the Bureau haven’t exactly put the flags at half-mast for Carter. He wasn’t top of anyone’s Christmas-card list. They seem content with the conclusion that it was suicide. More than content, I’d say.’

Mandler gave a grudging nod.

Woolf was wagging a finger to get attention. He looked like he badly needed some sleep. ‘But it still means we have to be extremely careful with the Americans. We don’t know how far Stutz’s influence spreads into Washington. We go to them for help, we risk blowing it all. Could we please turn to what we’ve got on your imam?’

Brandeis got to his feet and plugged his laptop into the screen. A long-lens shot of an elderly man appeared, partly obscured by the crowd around him. He was swathed in white, with a stiff embroidered hat, and had a bushy grey beard. His heavy-lidded eyes were lowered as if in prayer. The same man Tom had seen on Jefferson’s computer in the trailer.

‘Okay, we think this is the most recent shot of Asim Zuabi, taken four months ago. And here’s his mug shot when he first came on the grid.’

An emaciated figure, his head shaved, eyes sunken. He looked nothing like the later shot.

‘It’s early days so what we have is sketchy. In 2004, he walks into the US Consulate in Beirut. Why they didn’t spit him straight back out is still a mystery. It suggests he had names or some information that gave them cause to hang on to him. We don’t yet know where he was born or raised. He told them he was based at a mosque in a village north of Aleppo, which has since been shelled to fuck. But another source tells us that, prior to becoming a cleric, he spent some years working oil wells round the Gulf. Maybe that’s where he hooked up with Stutz. Whatever and wherever that connection occurred, the speed with which he was processed suggests that someone had a hand in fast-tracking his exit. He had an American passport and a green card in two weeks.’

‘What about family?’ asked Tom. ‘The mosque is supposed to be dedicated to one of his daughters.’

‘There are five known children by three different wives, none of whom accompanied him to America. We don’t know where they are now. If they’re still in Syria it’s going to be hard to get any reliable data but we’re working on it. He’s believed to live in a house close to the mosque. He has a couple of servants and a secretary, all men, who live there as well.’