‘I’m fine, too. Isn’t it a lovely day?’

‘Is it? We’ve no way of knowing, here. All the blinds are down so that we can use the terminals.’ That’s what management claimed, but Woody reckoned it was just to stop them looking out of the windows and daydreaming.

‘Well, take it from me, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I was wondering if you fancied going out for a drink again one day this week.’

‘Sure, that’d be great. What about tomorrow night?’

She agreed, and they arranged to meet at the same pub.

‘Woody, are you OK?’ she asked. ‘You sound a bit distant.’

‘Yeah, somebody walked over my grave, that’s all. Nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.’

When she’d gone Woody put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t block out the images of death and destruction. He needed a drink. Badly.

The function room had been booked in the name of the Belfast Overseas Investors Club but the dozen men sitting at the long mahogany table had little interest in investment. The man standing at the head of the table in a green tweed jacket and black woollen trousers could have passed as a mildly eccentric provincial stockbroker with his greying hair and slightly flushed cheeks. He was in his fifties and looked like a rugby player gone to seed, which is exactly what Liam Hennessy was. But after playing for his country he’d gone on to become a political adviser to Sinn Fein. Married with two children, Liam Hennessy was one of the most powerful men in the Republican movement.

The eleven listening to him were all high-ranking Provisional IRA officials and they had all been called to the hotel in Belfast at short notice. On the table in front of them were jugs of iced water and upturned glasses, but none had been touched. Each man also had a notepad in a red leather folder and a ballpoint pen.

Hennessy stood with his arms folded across his chest and spoke in a soft Irish brogue. He first thanked them for coming, though a summons from Liam Hennessy was not something that any of them could ignore. The group met regularly, always in different venues and under different names so that the security forces wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop, usually to discuss financing or strategy or matters of discipline, but today’s gathering was special. They had all seen the television reports of the south London police-station bombing and the pictures of ambulancemen and firemen hauling the rubble away with their bare hands, and they had heard that the IRA had claimed responsibility.

To Hennessy’s left was a large flat-screen television on a matte black stand, and underneath it was a video recorder. He took a videocassette off the table and slotted it into the recorder. The screen flickered and then there were shots of the Kensington bombing recorded from the BBC news. It was followed by a report of the Woolwich bombing, the explosion in Bank Tube station and the crop of car bombs that had killed or injured judges, police and army officers. Then the screen dissolved into black and white static and Hennessy bent down and switched the machine off.