She took his hand and gave him a thin smile. He watched her and Rolt go down the corridor together. Rolt held out an arm as if to guide her along, then retracted it.

Phoebe came out of another door. ‘He’ll only be five minutes or so. He just wants the picture.’

‘Did you get any of that?’

‘Mm. I texted Woolf about the garage.’

It didn’t take Rolt long to dispense with the mother of the man who had allegedly bombed the Invicta hostel. A four-minute chat, a flurry of camera flashes and it was all over. By the time Tom entered Rolt’s office she was gone and he was shouting down the phone. As soon as he saw Tom he finished the call. ‘That fuckwit. He’s so going to regret this.’

‘What’s happened?’

The prime minister had refused to meet him. This was the first time Tom had seen him angry.

‘With the state of his popularity you’d think he’d have more sense.’

‘Perhaps he’ll listen to his cabinet secretary. You two seemed to be getting on pretty well the other night.’

Rolt frowned, as if his memory of their recent encounter at Hugh’s club had been obscured by whatever else had happened to him since. Then he brightened. ‘Ah, yes, at least he’s got some clarity about him. And the way things are going, probably a more useful ally in the long term.’

‘Can’t he get you in with the PM?’

Rolt shook his head. The PM’s stonewalling had evidently stung him deeply. ‘You know what? Fuck him. I’m part of the future, he’s not.’

There was something messianic about his gaze, deluded and disturbing.

‘That was a bold move, inviting Mrs al-Awati.’

Rolt sighed. ‘Well, we don’t want to completely alienate the Muslim community. And I had her thoroughly checked out first. She’s a GP – almost one of us, really.’

‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ said Tom. ‘You’d assume that suicide bombers are poor and unemployed, with no hope and so forth, yet a lot of them come from decent backgrounds, which makes understanding it all the harder.’

‘Well, if things work out as planned we won’t need to be worrying about suicide bombers soon.’ He grinned. ‘So you were impressed with Skip and his vision for the future? I was worried you might be alarmed by it.’

Don’t overdo it, Tom told himself. ‘Well, it’s a bit 1984 when you first hear it, but it’s hard to argue against. The challenge is how you follow through, once you’ve isolated the people you want to move.’

Rolt moved to a sideboard and a tray of drinks. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Not for me, thanks.’

Rolt raised his glass. ‘To order out of chaos. Who was it said that people don’t want to be free but safe?’