The wedding was two days later, the venue a white stucco-fronted Victorian hotel off Wimbledon Common. White linen-covered tables lined a huge reception room, bride and groom enthroned beyond them on a dais beneath a vast gold-framed mirror strung from a picture rail. On one side, three floor-to-ceiling sash windows flanked by furled red velvet curtains looked out onto a lawn mown in criss-crossing diagonal lines. It was the grandest event Sara Shah had ever attended; her cousin and his bride had even made a table plan.

She had to avoid him, mustn’t embarrass herself again. She worked out the seat she’d grab to ensure she faced away from the table of Salman’s uni friends, where he’d be placed. Once, just once, she turned for a glimpse. His eyes were still honed in on her like a heat-seeking missile. For a nanosecond she locked on.

‘Seen a ghost?’ asked the cousin sitting beside her.

‘Who is he?’ whispered Sara.

‘Don’t you know? That’s Kareem. Kareem Abdullah bin-Jilani.’ The cousin lowered her eyes. ‘Loaded, apparently.’

Towards the end of June, she was sauntering in jeans and a pink blouse along Tooting Broadway. A clear mid-afternoon sun warmed her bare head and arms; she’d never felt such a bursting sense of liberation, of the ripening of a fuller life. Except for a few ugly race riots in the North, the country itself, particularly her bubble of south London, seemed to share her optimism. New Labour under smiling Tony Blair had just won their second general election. Conservatism and its innate pessimism were crushed. There would be money for health and schools, employment for young people, opportunity for everyone.

As she turned off Tooting Broadway in the direction of home, a low-slung red sports car pulled in beside her. A tall, lean figure jumped out.

‘It is Sara Shah, is it not?’ She tried to frown; but her face couldn’t help spreading itself into a smile. Don’t stare again, match him…

‘And if it is?’

He was disconcerted. ‘I am Kareem.’

‘Yes, I know.’

He returned the smile. ‘Ah, you are playing with me. Can I offer you a lift anywhere?’ There was already something about his tone and speech pattern. A voice with deep resonance but soft, not loud. The precise English of a foreigner seeking perfection.

‘I’m on my way home, thanks. It’s just a few hundred yards.’

‘I wanted to approach your father at the wedding for a formal introduction. But you kept disappearing.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It is OK. Now we have introduced ourselves. Perhaps you would like to go for a short drive?’