The middle-aged woman sitting opposite him in a thick tweed coat and a fake fur hat had bought her council house by mortgaging herself to the hilt. Her son had helped out with the payments until they’d had a row and he’d left home. Now the building society was threatening to evict her. If she sold the house would Sir John be able to get her into another council house? The MP smiled benignly and told her that there were people at the centre who would help her negotiate with the building society and have the payments frozen or reduced. He motioned at Ellen and introduced her to the woman and then stood up to shake her hand, patting her on the back as he ushered her to the door. Ellen took her down the corridor into another room and left her with one of the advisers there. Teflon Time strikes again, she thought. There were half a dozen people sitting on a line of chairs in the corridor outside the office commandeered by the MP. There was an old couple, a young man in jeans and a motorcycle jacket who looked like he might be troublesome, two housewives, and a Chinese man in a blue duffel coat. He was muttering something, reading from a small piece of paper in his hands and repeating something to himself over and over again. As she walked past him it sounded as if he said ‘elected representative’.

‘Next please,’ she said, and the old man stood up and helped his wife to her feet. Sir John greeted them with his hand outstretched and a caring smile on his face.

Ellen sat behind her own desk, to the left of Sir John’s and at right angles to it, and watched and learned. She had hopes of one day following him into the House of Commons. Her degree was in political science and she’d been chairman of her university’s student union, but what she needed now was hard, political experience. Sir John Brownlow was providing that, even if it meant that she had to tolerate the occasional wandering hand on her buttocks or suggestive remark, but so far she’d been able to fend off his passes without offending him. Besides, he’d stopped being quite so chauvinistic once she’d become a good friend and confidante of his wife and taken his two teenage daughters to the cinema a few times. Ellen knew what she wanted, and how she wanted to get it, and what she didn’t want was to get her ticket to the House by lying on her back with the Honourable Member between her legs.

He spent half an hour with the old couple, and then Ellen took them out and called for whoever was next. The Oriental man looked around, saw that everyone was looking at him, and got to his feet. ‘I think it is my turn,’ he said quietly.

She asked his name and then he followed her into the office. Sir John was already in position to shake hands and Ellen saw his jaw tighten when he saw Nguyen, but only for a second. Then the teeth flashed and the eyes crinkled into the face that smiled down from the posters at election time. Sir John was nothing if not professional.