Sara gave Patrick the slightest flick of the head. He understood and looked at his watch. ‘I have another meeting, Dame Isobel, I hope you’ll forgive me.’ He rose and left the room. Neither Isobel nor Sara moved.

‘Patrick has grown up,’ said Isobel, relaxing.

Sara smiled at her. ‘Have you really not seen him since… since…’

‘No. As he said, nearly fourteen years. He was – how shall I put it? – more biddable then.’

‘He knows that now. And he regrets it.’

‘He shouldn’t. What was done was right. It worked.’

Sara remembered J using similar words. She didn’t challenge them – her aim was different. She allowed a moment and then, adopting a shy hesitancy, asked the question.

‘Did you love him?’

Isobel, betraying surprise but not shock, hesitated not at all. ‘Did you?’

Sara’s brow creased; she hadn’t expected it. ‘I’d like to have seen him again. To have understood him. To hold him to account perhaps.’

‘Would you?’ replied Isobel, frowning. ‘Would you really?’

‘Yes, I believe so.’

‘I’d never have thought that.’

Suddenly, impetuously almost, Isobel stood up, collected the black jacket from her chair and slid it on. The trouser suit enhanced her, a woman who had come to dominate a man’s world. ‘You’re an interesting person, Sara,’ she said sweeping through the door like a panther returning to a forest of obscuration.

Patrick was waiting in the Legal office. ‘Well…’ he began as she stepped in. He sprang up to shut the door behind her.

‘Well indeed.’ Sara was reflecting on this mysterious woman, keeper of secrets not just of the state but of her own life too. ‘I think they were lovers. But I’m not so sure she was his victim. He may have finally bitten off more than he could chew.’

‘You’re on the right track – but only halfway there.’ He spoke with rare certainty. ‘Go the full circle. Follow the evidence, the chronology. Look for simultaneities.’ He moved closer to her; she sensed him preparing an announcement that would shatter their preconceptions, so seminal that even the walls mustn’t hear. ‘Look, Sara, of course Isobel wasn’t his victim, for God’s sake, he was her bloody victim.’

‘Explain.’