‘So you’re more than an employee, would you say?’

Jackman nodded. Just the other side of Victoria, one of the lanes was cordoned off where a Lebanese restaurant on the Edgware Road was still smouldering. Builders in hi-viz overalls were erecting scaffolding. The whole building looked unstable. Jackman shook his head. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’

Tom murmured assent.

‘Mind you, given the situation, it was going to happen, sooner or later, wasn’t it?’

Tom nodded, though he wasn’t ready to put any of his cards on the table. Right now there were a lot of things he wasn’t as sure of as he used to be. His life had been so full of certainties – the job, serving his country. Now it was in bits. ‘So you went through the Invicta programme?’

‘One of the first. I was in Basra, and I was in Bosnia, but Basingstoke!’ Tom frowned. ‘Invicta’s base is just outside.’ Jackman shuddered at the memory. ‘When you’ve been chucking back a dozen Special Brew before noon, it’s a long climb back up. And coming off the fags, same time.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘That just about sums it up. Ask me then if I thought I could do it. No way, José.’

‘But you did.’

‘With Invicta, once you set foot in there, it’s out of your hands. Solitary confinement the first week. No bed. You want a pillow, you got to take your jumpsuit off and roll it up. Only you don’t do that cos it stinks of shit and piss.

‘Second week, you start running. Each day they double the distance. Fall over, there’s no one to get you back up. Just some bastard like I used to be – excuse the language, sir – shouting right in your ear to go back to the start.

‘Third week you get a change of kit and a shower – cold. But you’re so glad of it because by that time you look and stink like a hunger striker.’

‘Bit brutal, isn’t it?’

‘It’s what works.’

‘Do they have many drop-outs?’

‘Zero tolerance. One hundred per cent success. And once you’re back on your feet, they never lose sight of you – unlike the bloody Army. Invicta’s for life. Me, I’m happy with my lot.’ He patted the soft leather of the dash. ‘But there’s blokes he’s put through college, found them jobs.’

‘What does Invicta demand in return for all this?’

Jackman shrugged. ‘Just loyalty. But that’s worth more than riches.’

Chapter 26

26

Surrey