‘Medical treatment help you sleep?’ said Layla.

Porter looked at her again. There was just a trace of a smile around her lips, and suddenly it was clear to him exactly what had happened.

‘How much did you pay her?’

‘Pay who?’ said Layla lightly.

‘The nurse,’ said Porter.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I might have had too much to drink over the last few years,’ growled Porter. ‘But the alcohol hasn’t rotted all my brain cells, not yet anyway. I’ve still got enough going on upstairs to know that young girls don’t go to bed with guys old enough to be their father unless somebody is making it worth their while.’

‘Maybe she likes you,’ said Layla with a shrug.

‘I have many faults, but I’m not vain,’ said Porter. ‘What’s the deal?’

Layla paused. The BMW had passed through Hammersmith now, and was roaring along the fast lane of the M4 towards the airport. ‘She’s not really a nurse at all, although she knows how to give someone an injection, and stick a plaster on them if they’re cut. She does the honey traps for us. She beds men, usually middle-aged men, and then we threaten to tell their wives unless they do something we want them to do. It’s the oldest trick in the book, of course, but a damned good one all the same, and still works a treat.’

‘So why me?’

‘One of the psychologists we got to watch a video of you talking suggested it,’ said Layla. ‘He said he reckoned your self-esteem was low.’

‘Well, you just spoilt it by telling me.’

Layla shrugged. ‘You’d already guessed.’

Porter laughed, ‘Well, if by some bloody miracle I get back from this hellhole you’re sending me to, tell them I’m still feeling a bit down,’ he said. ‘I might need a repeat prescription.’

‘I’ll try …’

‘And ask her to bring her sister as well.’

The BMW had already pulled up in the short-stay car park at Heathrow. Porter followed Layla towards Terminal 4. They still had an hour and a half to go before the flight, but the check-in rules meant they had to be there in plenty of time. Porter was carrying a single leather holdall the Firm had brought for him, with a spare pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, some shaving kit, and a paperback to read on the plane. He slung it over his back, and walked alongside her in the direction of the check-in. His eye caught a newspaper display. All of them were leading on the Katie Dartmouth story: the Guardian had a poll showing support for the government slumping as the crisis worsened, predicting a wipeout in the by-election; the Mail had signed up Katie’s mum to write a kidnap diary; the Sun was carrying a Katie countdown measure – ‘D-DAY MINUS 3’ screamed its headline.

They whizzed through the VIP lounge, then went on to passport control. Porter naturally hadn’t had a passport: it wasn’t the kind of thing you needed when you slept rough. The Firm had rustled one up overnight. Amazing what you could do when the fate of the government was on the line, he reflected. Even the picture doesn’t look too bad, he decided, as he took the passport back from the immigration officer and tucked it into his jeans. Maybe they didn’t have to pay that Danni girl too much for the shag: at the rate my life is improving, he thought with a wry smile to himself, the next one might even be free.