An eerie calm seemed to have settled over the town. He passed a petrol station. The pumps were covered up, the shop part gutted. There was no sign of the police this time. On the forecourt a pair of foxes battled it out over the contents of a discarded KFC box. He was irritated at having to leave London. Only one day into his new job and he had had to ask to be excused from a seminar they’d wanted him to attend at the LSE. But Pippa was full of understanding, as if he could do no wrong.

‘Of course, Sam! Family must come first. It’s a Party motto,’ she’d told him.

Not that he had let on what the family matter was: if they found out about Karza, it would be a disaster. He still didn’t quite know what to make of his important new role. He was glad of the money as well as the attention. It felt good to have a position and be listened to, though it was new to him to be trading on his background.

He rounded the corner at the bottom of his mother’s street. Part of him dreaded what Nasima would have to say, but he was looking forward to seeing her again. There was something intriguing about her – and she was the complete opposite of Helen. The brutally perfunctory way she had ditched him, the implication that he was the wrong race and religion, had stung him hard.

He heard the steps about ten metres behind. At first it felt like a good sound, that he wasn’t alone on these deserted streets. The cops had the place on lockdown so surely there was no need for alarm.

But an unmistakable clack clack said the steps were boots with metal tips. A sound that, as a kid, he had read as a warning: trouble.

‘Hey, it’s Kovacevic the Arsehole.’

His first thought was to ignore it. But that word, one he had hoped never to be called again, meant he had been recognized. And he knew from the voice who it was. The steps quickened; he felt a hand on his arm, breathed the smell of alcohol and weed. The street was deserted, with no sign of the police van that had been at the bottom of the hill. Right. He stopped and turned.