The Invicta campus, a decommissioned RAF airfield, looked like a cross between a military base and a country estate. Either side of the gate a line of poplars marked the perimeter and masked the high wire fence behind it. The entrance was discreetly fortified. A metal ramp set into the asphalt would rise to block unwanted traffic. The barriers were quite slim but there was a second, much heavier, gate fifty yards in. The grass was perfectly tended, the brickwork freshly repointed.

Even though the guards would have known the car a mile off, Jackman still brought it to a stop and rolled down the window. The one on duty was not some rotund failed bouncer but a trim, well-turned-out man of Jackman’s age. ‘Wotcher, Jacko. Someone famous?’

He peered into the car at Tom, who gave his name.

‘Could you step out, please, sir?’

Jackman nodded at Tom. ‘Best do as they say. No special treatment here.’

Tom got out of the car. As he straightened up, the hangover he had almost forgotten about met him again, like a low concrete ceiling.

‘Bad night, sir?’ The guard patted him down.

‘Terrible. You?’

The guard looked at him blankly.

‘Zero tolerance,’ Jackman explained, as they drove on. ‘One drink and you’re back in the slammer.’

The administrator of the Invicta campus was a former marine Tom recognized from Iraq. Philips was his name and, though he was professionally civil, he made no reference to the encounter in their previous lives. When Tom casually referred to it, Philips told him it was Invicta policy to ignore past connections. ‘We keep ourselves facing forward. We’re all about today and tomorrow, not yesterday.’

But Philips could see he wasn’t buying this piece of spin. ‘Look. Most folk who come through here, one way or another something’s done them in. Maybe it was during service or maybe before. But whatever it was, it’s driving their behaviour. This place is about getting shot of all that. The day a lad starts here, he draws a line under everything up to that moment. That’s the past. This is now. That’s the deal.’

‘What about families?’

‘If they have a problem there, we teach them how to deal with that. If there’s something we can do for the relatives we’ll do it, but only if it benefits the associate.’

‘Associate?’

‘That’s what we’re all called. Nice and neutral, no ranks or hierarchy. Helps with the sense of kinship.’

As they passed between buildings Tom saw a group of men in full MTPs emerge from a clump of trees and climb into the back of a Land Rover. Even from this distance he could see that they were bent with fatigue.