But Lamar was slow off the mark this morning, and it was Erin Jones he saw first. She came out of the house with Tanner in tow, the pair of them heading for the garage where they’d left the Range Rover. She saw Vincent at the wheel of the Lincoln and came over, saying to Tanner across her shoulder that she’d be along in a minute.

Vincent had a few seconds to think of a good opener—she had to walk the width of the turning area—but all he managed when she reached his window was, ‘I saw you on TV last night.’

Christ. Instead of a perfectly pleasant, Nice to meet you, I’m Vincent. He had to sound like some stranger on the street, pleased to see a face from screenland.

She laughed. ‘Yeah. Maybe I should be grateful they’re burning buildings in my honour. Where there’s smoke, there’s publicity.’

Vincent said, ‘I can burn a few too, if you like? I’ll say it’s an anti-Erin protest.’

‘Yeah, I’ll let you know.’ She was wearing sunglasses, the big-lens celebrity kind, and she pushed them up on her head as she asked, ‘How’s the new job?’

He liked that: letting him see her eyes, making the question genuine. He spread his hands. ‘Couldn’t complain if I tried.’

‘Give it time.’

That was nice, too: the way she seemed to be holding back a smile as she talked. Like they hadn’t just met, like they were in on something together. She was still standing beside the car, happy to take a moment with him, but he felt himself running low on small talk. Probably all that time on the road in silence had taken the edge off his skills, such as they were.

But he was interested in her views, and she seemed pleasant enough, so he said, ‘I don’t think invading Iran would be a good idea.’

Erin said, ‘Oh, okay.’ Light and neutral but not dismissive, leaving room for him to make the case.

Vincent said, ‘If Iraq’s any kind of lesson, it’s that we should err on the side of minding our business.’

Erin said, ‘Not necessarily. If we hadn’t gone in, there’s a good chance they would’ve collapsed into civil war like Syria did, with four-hundred thousand people dead. Or gone the other direction, and ended up as a nuclear-armed prison state like North Korea.’

Vincent said, ‘So we split the difference, invaded under a false pretext, and killed two-hundred thousand people.’

Erin shook her head. ‘Most of the deaths were due to sectarian violence. And it wasn’t a false pretext. Saddam Hussein murdered a hundred and eighty thousand people and ran Iraq like a slave fiefdom. If that’s not enough to depose someone militarily, the West needs its moral compass fixed.’