‘Good girl. Yes, the returners. Kareem has another important service to offer. The returners need vetting. Who’s still loyal and wants to go on performing on the Carry On Jihad film set? Who’s had enough? Who’s seen the evil and wants to change sides? And who’d like to know the answers to all those questions? Obviously the string-pullers of terror. And… and…’ He was leaning in towards both of them, his cheeks and lips livid.

‘HMG,’ said Patrick.

‘Precisely. Particularly the Carry On Brothers, the future enemy within.’

‘So that they can be monitored – or somehow got rid of?’

‘Ask Isobel. Ask Kareem. If you can find him. Let me know if you do.’ He began to walk towards the end of the pier; they fell in line either side of him. ‘They’ve arrived.’ Patrick and Sara flicked looks behind. ‘You won’t see them, they’re sat on a bench at the end of the pier. Nice-looking young couple. Not kissing and cuddling quite as much as one might expect on a lovers’ day out to the seaside. Useless tradecraft these days, all done by bloody gizmo.’

‘If I had the chance to ask Isobel and Kareem,’ said Sara, refusing to allow his deflection, ‘in an imaginary parallel world of truth not lies, what would they say?’

J stopped and rounded on her. ‘I don’t know what Kareem fucking well ended up doing. Or how many. In my time, there was precision. Afterwards, who knows? I was out, the brakes were off. Have you ever seen what the power over life and death does to people? I don’t know what she was fucking well allowing him to do. I don’t know if she even knew. Or wanted to know. He was her triumph. The woman who’d planted at the heart of British jihad the one truly successful mole we’d ever had. She was one step away from the top job, for Christ’s sake, he was her ticket.’

‘One last thing,’ said Sara coolly.

‘You’re bloody right.’

‘Kareem and Isobel. Were they lovers?’

He softened, looking at her with an astonishment that turned slowly to a gaunt smile. ‘What on earth makes you ask that?’

‘Because I think I understand him,’ she replied. ‘But I know nothing of her.’

J considered the question for a few seconds; she sensed him recalling images, faces, expressions, body language. ‘If he fucked her – and if she was happy to be fucked by him, whether for trade advancement or personal pleasure – then I suspect we might all understand a great deal more.’

‘But did they?’ insisted Sara.

‘How would I know? Put a camera into their bedrooms?’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t,’ she said, unabashed.