Patrick allowed the flicker of fear, still kindled by the remembered dread, a moment to ebb. ‘And then?’

‘A couple of months later, I was chatting with Salman, my cousin who got married. “Your friend, Kareem, was a handsome chap. What’s he like?” I asked lightly. “Didn’t know him that well,” Salman replied, “he was only on the edge of our group. He always paid for things so I thought I should invite him.” Then he gave me a look. “Why, Sara, do you fancy him?” “’Course not,” I said. “He’s probably got a girlfriend anyway.” “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve mostly lost touch with him since the wedding, but he did have a girl hanging around. Called Marion. English. Quite posh. Sorry if you fancied your chances, kid,” he said.’

‘Oh, Sara,’ said Patrick.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Among everything else, what a fool. But my main thought was different. I escaped. Marion would become the abused.’

A moment passed, then Patrick spoke with hot intensity. ‘They must have been mad.’

‘Who?’

‘MI5 in the form of Isobel Le Marchant, now Dame Isobel… if, in some way, they were giving this man no one properly knew the power of life and death over other human beings.’ He looked as if he wanted to flagellate himself. ‘And a signed contract saying that he’d never be brought to book.’

‘Yes,’ said Sara calmly. ‘Though it’s still only our assumption.’ She laid her arms on the edge of her father’s bed and rested her head on them. ‘Imagine being Sami, brought before him, being told he’s called the Adviser. Whatever the name, he can see he’s the one who decides fates. Imagine being Marion, or Maryam, so terrified that she has to escape from him.’ She paused and rubbed her nose along the sleeve of her sweater. ‘Imagine being me, an eighteen-year-old virgin lying beneath him, overwhelmed and pinned down, about to be raped. And him loving it all.’ The confusion of emotions was resolving to a cold, enduring anger.

‘Power,’ said Patrick. ‘The love of power.’

‘And what was he doing to you?’

‘Again trying to exert his power, I guess.’

‘He had no power over you. Or Isobel or J.’

‘The power of manipulation, then. They were desperate.’

‘And no underlying principle. It’s all about himself. It doesn’t matter whose side he’s on. Politics, ideology, religion all irrelevant.’

‘What about Islam?’

‘It would never have been more than a means. Causes were handy tools, nothing more.’

‘You can’t be sure of that.’