‘And you?’

She allowed a moment to pass. Yes, he had to know. She withdrew her hand and sat up straight. ‘We had visitors in our street.’ Patrick screwed up his eyes, concentrating hard. ‘Parked in a black car. Watching. When they came a second time, my dad went over to ask who they were and what they were doing. One had a Scottish accent, the other was big and burly. They told him it was way above his pay grade, they were there to protect me, f— off back into the house.’

Patrick took a deep breath. ‘I see,’ he said calmly.

‘Sounds like your visitors.’

‘Undoubtedly.’ He thought for a few seconds. ‘It’s interesting it was the same two men.’

She frowned, puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘It suggests that whatever is or isn’t happening, this is a very tight operation. It may be authorised, known just to a handful. Or it may be off the books.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I still have that tiny element of faith,’ he said, ‘that official would be better.’

‘He could just have tripped at the top.’ Patrick stayed silent, waiting for her. ‘Or someone hurled him down, smashing his head against the post.’ She peered down, hands circling the Coke can, the canteen seeming to go eerily quiet.

‘I imagine you never read James Bond,’ said Patrick, breaking the moment.

She looked up and smiled. ‘It’s hardly a feminist tract.’

‘I did. As a disobedient boy under the bedclothes with a torch.’ He’d injected a thrill into his voice which relaxed her. ‘So you won’t remember Goldfinger’s three card trick. “They have a saying in Chicago, Mr Bond. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” That’s fiction, we have the reality. Happenstance is the Sayyid files, coincidence is Morahan’s death, third time… your father. Enemy action.’ Any trace of humour vanished.

‘Who’s the enemy?’ she asked.

‘Ask another question. What secret is the enemy after? Or trying to cover up?’

He was trying to tell her something; she reminded herself of their interrupted conversation. ‘A piece of paper, perhaps?’

He half-closed his eyes. ‘I never finished the story, did I?’

Chapter 20

20

2005

His distaste slowly turned to a certain admiration. Kareem – a man being held in a pseudo-cell by senior MI5 officers with whom he was negotiating his freedom – should have been the one making pleas. But cool, calculating, bold, he had turned the tables. It was he who was deciding whether or not to grant them his favour, he who was laying down the conditions.

‘What makes you think they’ll give you a contract in any meaningful, enforceable sense of that word?’ asked Patrick.