‘It’s as if you are making a show. You stay in an expensive hotel and are then whisked away. You change your travel plans, returning to England via a third country. A detour that could almost have been designed to attract attention. Once back, you take every visible step to raise your profile as a radical Islamist. You consort with future bombers, you act as a recruiting sergeant for jihad. 7/7 happens. You know full well you’re under surveillance, that your phone must be bugged. Yet you start criticising 7/7 in front of the brothers. It was “inelegant”, “wrong”, you say – almost as if you want to be overheard. When you’re picked up by the intelligence services, you neither protest your innocence nor point to the lack of evidence against you. Indeed, you appear to confirm it. Then, with hardly a struggle, you offer your services, ensuring you are bound into MI5 with a written contract that gives you a hold over it.’ She paused. ‘You say you want my account to be correct. Any inaccuracies so far?’

Kareem had sat impassively; now his face lit up with a manufactured grin and a short chuckle. ‘It is an excellent “narrative”. Please continue.’

‘As you’ve done with other women, you seduce your handler, Isobel, now Dame Isobel, Le Marchant. You’ve put yourself at the very heart of the intelligence operation against Islamist terror. But who are you really, Kareem?’

‘An interesting question, Sara. Who are any of us?’

‘Let’s turn it on its head. Perhaps it’s not the jihadist leaders you must throw bones to, but your MI5 employers. And it is your real comrades, your real controllers – perhaps ultimately the man, or men, you met in Pakistan – that you are still working for. You calculate, plan, think long-term. Years, decades even. So yes, you throw the British security services some jihadist hotheads and idiots, none of them of real use to your cause. And you preserve the ones you believe capable of whatever final victory you have in mind. All the while you assure your MI5 handler, your lover, that they present no threat.’ She rose from her chair and walked in front of his, her eyes over him. ‘Correct?’

Kareem stayed in his chair, the smile still playing around his lips. ‘You are a woman, Sara, I am a man. I will concede you one element of your narrative. Isobel. Dame Isobel. Even now, we see each other.’ He paused and raised himself to whisper in her ear: ‘I sometimes place my lips on her ageing bony cunt.’ He relaxed back in his chair.