Spate lifted a finger. ‘Are you suggesting we fly the PM back from Camp David?’

We? Who the fuck does he think he is?

In any case, she knew damn well that neither wild horses nor even parts of the country in flames would make the PM abandon his love-in with the President.

The news package cut to a line of people wrapped in blankets being ushered into a school hall, which had been commandeered as a temporary shelter. Spate was pointing again. ‘Well, Home Secretary, if I may, this does look like someone’s in charge – caring for the victims.’

Garvey looked at him, amazed by his capacity to detect the thinnest silver lining in even the darkest cloud. That was a talent, she supposed, of sorts.

‘Those people.’ She jabbed a finger at the group of residents being ushered towards the hall. ‘Who d’you think they’re going to be voting for in the next election?’

Her phone buzzed: the prime minister. She snatched it up, at the same time shooing Spate out of the room.

‘Sarah! So sorry I’ve been incommunicado. POTUS has been keeping us under lock and key.’

‘Bit hard to hear you – there’s a loud buzzing.’

‘Cicadas: the trees are alive with them. It’s practically tropical here.’

The photo call with the President – on a golf course, for fuck’s sake – had been a disaster, an absolute gift for Private Eye and Mock the Week.

‘You’ve seen the latest, Prime Minister?’ She had just forwarded him a briefing, a stark rundown of the latest casualties: twenty dead and at least six hundred injured. All police leave cancelled indefinitely; army medics drafted into overflowing A and E departments.

‘Yes, yes. Very troubling.’

She knew he hadn’t read it, and he knew she knew.

‘Look, Sarah, we really appreciate all you’re doing.’ We? As if the President himself were patting her on the head. ‘We’re cracking on here . . .’ Cracking on eating twelve-course fucking banquets and downing the President’s personal bourbon. ‘And they’re talking openly about us speeding up our exit from Afghanistan. But for that fracas in Helmand . . . ’

‘Sorry to butt in, Geoff.’ She couldn’t give a flying fuck about Afghanistan. ‘May I speak bluntly?’

‘You always do, Sarah. That’s why I put you in the job.’ He gave one of his falsetto laughs, which she recognized as a sign he wasn’t amused.

‘The war on everyone’s minds is right here on their doorstep, not three thousand miles away in Helmand. It’s not going away.’