Woolf raised his eyebrows inscrutably. ‘I wouldn’t want to go that far . . . just yet.’

‘But that’s why you’re keeping this in the family.’

Woolf nodded again.

Jedburgh cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, James, but I’m not buying it. Right now we’ve got an inundation of returnees from Syria. A lot of them have seen and done unimaginable things, been thrown together with the most out-there extremists. They’re trained, they’re battle-hardened and we can’t keep track of them because they’re using different names, keeping away from their families and so on. We just don’t have the resources or the intelligence.’

This Woolf knew to be true, to his frustration. And Jedburgh wasn’t done.

‘The sight of one of their own being all lovey-dovey and multi-culti with Christians, atheists and whatnot, they’re going to see that guy as the enemy even more than the Anglos. It’s a nice idea, but I think you’re going to find you’re barking up the wrong tree. Radicalization is the issue, nothing else.’

The meeting fell silent. Woolf glanced at Rafiq, then Cindy. Both were studying their hands intently.

Mandler got up and brought the meeting to a close with a speech about how grateful he was to them for sparing the time, and waited while the others filed out to their cars.

‘Interesting.’ He gave Woolf a mischievous look.

‘Really?’

‘You have to consider all sides of the problem. And the trouble is, what you’ve got here is conjecture. I think we might park this for now. Perhaps I can find something else on which you can train your enormous brain.’

It sounded like a compliment, yet also a putdown.

And with that he folded up his glasses and left.

Chapter 20

20

Westminster, Central London

‘Can you open your bag, please?’

There was a heavy police presence outside Party Headquarters, checking people before they went through the door. Barriers had been set up to funnel visitors to a table where their belongings were being examined. Sam unzipped his bag. The policewoman glanced in and ran a grey plastic wand over his laptop. ‘ID?’

‘I have an appointment, with—’

‘ID, please,’ she repeated, as if he hadn’t heard her.

He felt inside his coat and brought the driving licence out of his wallet. She peered at the details, then examined a clipboard held by her colleague. ‘Mr Koverchovich?’

She said it loudly, mispronouncing it. A couple of other uniforms looked up and scanned his face.

‘Dr Kovacevic. I’m here for a job interview.’

The policewoman’s mouth twitched with amusement. ‘Good luck, sir,’ she said, without a trace of goodwill as she handed back his bag. With a curt flick of her head, she signalled to him to go through.