‘He says he’ll talk to the White House,’ said Porter. ‘If the American President gets behind the roadmap –’

‘Nice try, but it’s not going to work here,’ said Hassad. He was chuckling as he spoke. ‘Everybody knows that the Americans couldn’t care less what the British think. You are just the poodles.’

Nasri jabbed a finger in Porter’s direction. ‘America is controlled by the Zionists. They do what the Israelis want them to do. The British are America’s poodles, so it follows that you are the tools of the Zionists as well.’

Porter knew he was struggling. He hadn’t imagined they would be interested for a moment in the offer of peace talks. But he was being paid to speak to them. I’ll do my job the best I can. And then I’ll take matters into my own hands.

He took a helping of salad on his fork, then some more meat, and when he had finished he held the knife in the palm of his hand. ‘How about money, then?’ he said. ‘If a man isn’t interested in peace then he should at least be interested in cash.’

Again Hassad paused before he answered. You could get a better measure of the deformity around his mouth when you were sitting close to him. It stopped him from speaking properly, and when he chewed, his lips contorted upwards, making it impossible for him to conceal the food he was swallowing. ‘How much money is on the table?’

For a brief moment, Porter could feel his pulse racing. Maybe it was just money they were after all along. They didn’t look like gangsters. There were plenty of guys here, and they were living in pretty rough conditions. Men put up with that because they believed in a cause, not because they wanted to make themselves rich. Gangsters would be hanging out by a pool somewhere down in Beirut, with a harem of Russian hookers, a fridge full of cold beer and a big satellite dish beaming down Sky Sports. They wouldn’t be down here reading the Koran to one another.

‘A million at least,’ said Porter looking Hassad straight in the eye.

Hassad turned away to speak to his colleagues, talking quickly. While he was doing so, Porter slipped the knife inside the belt of his trousers. Then he took another chunk of food in his hands, and ate it quickly. ‘If a million, why not more?’ said Hassad looking back at him. ‘Why not two million or three million?’

‘Name your price,’ snapped Porter. ‘Then we can negotiate.’

‘But the money doesn’t matter, does it?’ interrupted Nasri. ‘One million, five million, ten million, what difference does it make? The British government just takes the money out of the bank, hands it over and carries murdering our people. The money doesn’t change anything.’

‘You take money from the French,’ said Porter.

‘That’s different,’ said Asad. ‘The French aren’t occupying our lands.’

It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice was by far the weakest of the four men. He was paler than the others, and his beard was struggling to cover his face. Maybe the brains of the outfit, thought Porter. In any terrorist cell, there would be a planner, a frontman and a fighter, and Porter’s was guessing that Asad was the planner. Maybe he was the man to convince?