Rolt put an arm round his shoulders and steered him towards one of the huge windows that overlooked the park. ‘It won’t be long before everything gets a lot clearer. It has to get worse before it gets better. The country’s had a couple of shocks, but it’s not enough. We’ve had some outbreaks of violence, a few folk are probably thinking about jumping ship for Spain and wherever, but most people are getting on with their lives, back to business as usual. We need another event, something that will really change the climate – politically speaking.’

We need another event. We. Tom was struck by a terrible realization, so terrible that he had to push it temporarily out of his mind in order to stay in the room. He tried to finish the conversation with his voice level. ‘Well, if there’s a seat, I want in.’

‘Tom, I really applaud your sentiment. But we’ve done our bit on that front for the moment. Stutz’s crew will handle the rest. He has the men and the means. His network – it’s fantastic. He’s got his people in over forty countries, for God’s sake. He’s been prepping them for years.’

Tom blinked with what he hoped resembled admiration while he digested this. Mandler need be in no doubt now about Rolt’s connection to Stutz.

‘I understand your impatience. I know what happened to you in Afghanistan made you thirsty for revenge. Come back in twenty-four hours and I’ll see about giving you a heads-up.’

Phoebe put her head round the door. ‘Sorry, Vernon, your four-thirty’s here.’

Chapter 75

75

Vestey’s house was a new-build on an anonymous estate outside Basingstoke, one of four that sat at the end of a cul-de-sac behind neat, square lawns with no flowers.

The van said ‘Lawlor Landscaping’, with a green tree logo on the side. They left it on the main road, and walked up: one from MI5’s digital intelligence team and the other a forensics specialist, trained to work under severe time pressure. Woolf had asked Tom along on the grounds that, with his background, he might notice something they would overlook, though he didn’t need much persuading.

The two techies were kitted out in anonymous, greenish-hued overalls that suggested gardeners, and each carried a dusty rucksack that contained, inside sealed pouches, all they needed for the job: gloves, card readers, a pair of hard drives in case one failed during the uploading, and a lightweight forensics kit with all the essentials for the recovery of fibres, fingerprints and any kind of sample likely to yield DNA. Woolf had gone to town and had a folder tucked under his arm also marked ‘Lawlor Landscaping’, with the same tree logo as on the van. For a team so short on resources, they’d risen to the challenge quite impressively.