‘Snooping into my own community.’ She paused. ‘So some might say.’

He turned on her. ‘Surely your intelligence would not allow you to say, or think, such a thing.’

For the first time she saw a force within – and a calculating mind intent on dissolving her objections. Even so, there was a desperation in his request. She remembered her father’s words: ‘Perhaps he’s in trouble, he needs help.’ None of that diminished the immensity of what he was asking her; to step aside from her career path and take a risk both personal and professional.

‘Effectively, you’re inviting me to go rogue.’

‘Some might say that. But I am entitled to define my own legitimacy.’ He sat back on the bench, disengaging eyes, peering blankly into the distance, trying to keep his shoulders straight. She saw a man battling to overcome his fears, confronting something he had never been faced with before, no more bolts to shoot.

He swivelled away from her towards the evening gloom. ‘I could have turned him down, you know.’

‘Who?’ She was bemused; the remark seemed so out of context.

‘Sayyid. The informant. Whoever it really is. He – she perhaps – gave me the option. I didn’t have to. I could have let it go by. Perhaps I should have.’ He suddenly seemed grieving over some loss or error; a fork in the road. This was something more than fear. Vulnerability – that’s what it was. A man, once wounded, who might be wounded again.

‘But you didn’t turn him down,’ she said softly.

‘No. No, I didn’t. You know why? I feel affronted. Personally affronted. It’s not just their country to protect. It’s my country too. All of ours.’

She wanted to do something alien to her – to place an arm around his shoulder, to comfort him. She leant towards him, then stopped herself. ‘Are you afraid?’

He stirred. ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe our intelligence services shoot people in the head or drop them out of helicopters, or out of boats with lead in their boots. Or “disappear” them into cement mixers and car crushers or stuff them into suitcases or any of the other crude rubbish so beloved by the fantasists.’ He paused; the late breeze rustled leaves and stroked the pond. ‘My fear is different. It’s not for me, I’m getting on. It’s what there may be to find out. Not what may be about to happen, but what has happened. That there was some kind of more sophisticated… more invisible… evil.’

She had an overwhelming, even oppressive, sense that this was the most important conversation of both their lives.

‘There was one other thing Sayyid indicated,’ he said. ‘If I move on what he’s given me, it must be fast. In his words, I – we – have to stay ahead of them. It’s immediate or not at all.’