‘I will. But there’s nothing to fear for me. Maybe it’s for the best. Now I must go up and work. I’ll get something from the fridge to eat.’

She walked into the kitchen, opened the door and stooped to the crisper at the bottom. From it, she retrieved the envelope she’d concealed there. Grabbing an apple she had no desire to eat, she turned angrily and headed for the stairs. The secret state could try scaring her off – but she wouldn’t let it touch her father.

Shadowy figures sitting at a table in the foreground. Three facing front-on in a diagonal line of the camera’s sight – a thickset man, outline of a rough beard, wearing a dark jacket, maybe leather. Two other males, hard to make out more. Opposite, nearest to the camera, just the sides and backs of their heads showing, three more figures. Furthest right a woman, wearing a scarf, its colour undefined; in the middle a second woman with long hair in black silhouette and jacket; on the left, sitting upright and gesticulating, wearing a collarless tunic, a jet-haired man with a trim beard running from sideburns round the point of his chin.

She inserted the cassette into the dictaphone and pressed replay. She continued her listening of the recorded fragmentary conversation. The majority of the time, it appeared to be picking up the voice of the jet-haired man. She assumed he was the main target of the surveillance. The assumption, and its possible implications, appalled her. The tape hissed on; she forced herself to stay alert, to try to disentangle words and sentences that signified anything.

M: You were one person I had not expected to see.

F: Why?

M: I never forget what you said… INAUDIBLE…

F: If you’re speaking of 9/11, my eyes have seen what followed… INAUDIBLE… INAUDIBLE… Of which you approve, I suppose.

M: Or perhaps of which I was prophetic… INAUDIBLE.

She stopped, wound back and replayed. The final proof – as if it were needed by now. She recalled those words from the note Sayyid had pinned to her corporate profile.

… This is the person you must recruit as your investigator. She has special knowledge and a connection…

She finally had the completed answer to that initial and recurring question. This was why Morahan had wanted only her and no one else – the secret he had held back from her until, finally, it was revealed as his deathbed bequest. She, Sara Shah, was the long-haired woman in silhouette in the photograph – the connection the jet-haired man sitting beside her.

Should she feel abused by Morahan; that his manipulation had been wrong, even immoral? Or had he felt he had no choice; that she was the person he must have to arrive at whatever truth Sayyid was driving at – and his means justified that end.