The wheel inched its way up until they could take in the sweep from Tower Bridge to Vauxhall and beyond. The day was cloudy, compressing the city more intimately than a clearer sky. From this angle the epicentre drawing the eye could only be Westminster and Whitehall: the glass walls of City towers were too immersed in greyness, the flatlands in the far east and west too undefined. London’s skyscraper boom stood smeary in the murk.

Sara leant on the rail by the curved window, awe-struck by the street patterns below and the tiny figures scurrying through their day. It was her city, whatever her family roots and culture – and she was a modern woman of contemporary London with all its opportunities and temptations. Her eyes swivelled right to Lincoln’s Inn – her future, taking on the white, male supremacy. Had she now ruined it all?

She felt his hands gliding from behind over her hip bones and joining at the front of her waist. Unthinkingly, she leant back into him and felt his hardness against the top of her buttocks. She froze, scared of both her modernity and of him – and of where it had led her. She pulled away and turned to face him.

‘It’s stunning,’ she said, forcing a smile.

‘Yes.’ He didn’t return it. ‘What do you see when you look below?’

‘I see the city I live in.’

‘And when you look at Big Ben and those Houses of Parliament?’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Just say.’

‘Tradition, I guess. British democracy. Pretty pinnacles.’

‘That is not what I see,’ he said with unusual coldness.

She saw the same change in his expression as when he had silenced her in that dappled copse. The same intruder, fear, returned. He looked around – the other two couples in their pod were a few yards away with their backs to them, out of earshot. He moved closer to her and whispered harshly into her ear.

‘What I see are centuries of false superiority. Empire, financial exploitation, colonialism, snobbery, the takeover of lands and culture. Oppression is the word vulgarly used but commonly understood.’

She squinted at him. Where was all this coming from? ‘You don’t look like an oppressed person to me, Kareem,’ she murmured back.

‘How do you know, Sara, what beats within me?’

‘Do you want to explain?’

‘Anger. The hurt of our people. I sometimes burn with the desire for revenge.’

‘Why? It’s history. It’s over.’

‘No. It is never over.’

‘We live in a different world now. It’s becoming more equal. Yes, it’s slow and there’s a way to go, but we’ll get there.’