Before Russ joined us, Initial Assessment of incoming cases was always carried out by our section head. But Russ hasn’t bothered with IAs in years – that responsibility has devolved to me. What he’d sent me that afternoon was the list of Jared’s clients. Expecting to feel fear, I’d told myself that when the moment arrived it would be imperative to avoid nervous mistakes. But when I opened Russ’s file and saw what it contained, I felt only relief. It was here, I knew exactly what to do, and the risk was slight.

There were several hundred names on the list: private individuals, businesses, organisations. Ten per cent or so of Jared’s clients, all of them individuals, had been coded red by the federal police. The assessment of those cases was our priority. We’d discover that some people had earned a red code because they were former Muslims – they appeared on every list we received. Others would have a family link to an unauthorised activist. The rest would have posted rashly on social media or signed certain petitions or been photographed at certain protests or made donations to certain organisations or provoked concern in some other way. Each red name on Jared’s list also displayed at least one numeric code. A single code predominated – unsurprisingly, it stood for tax evasion.

Most of the names on the list were coded yellow. They belonged to clients suspected of an unlawful activity that wasn’t a national risk. Once again the code for tax evasion was everywhere. Finally, a few names – twenty-seven in all – were coded white. Those surprising clients had refused or dodged Jared’s more dubious services, and the police investigation had found no reason to suspect them of anything else.

Bram’s name was coded yellow and carried two numbers. I’d been afraid that the police might have unearthed something else against Bram – a hushed-up malpractice suit, a social media post about the underfunding of health care. But Bram confines his recklessness to money. The numbers he’d been allotted signified ‘tax evasion’ and ‘immigrant’.

Once the priority cases are comprehensively evaluated, a few end up recoded yellow or white. Russ does that, following the recommendations made by his staff. Then he forwards all the names that still carry a red code to Security. Once all the yellow cases are evaluated, they’re sent on to an appropriate authority as well – for most of Jared’s clients, that would be the tax office. What I had to do was simple, really. I keyed in Russ’s password, which enabled me to edit the spreadsheet, and changed Bram’s code from yellow to white. Next I deleted his tax-evasion number, leaving only the one that identified his immigrant status – his name suggested as much anyway.