The Brussels job had come out of the blue, like suddenly rounding a bend in a long dark tunnel and for the first time seeing light at the end of it. Old hopes had been resurrected and held out the prospect of a brighter future. But that too had gone sour, as he should have known it would, settling into an old familiar pattern. The Post’s interest in the EEC had been too restrictive. They wanted parochial Scottish angles on every story. And that had quickly curtailed his interest. As had the EEC itself.

Slater saw the Commission as a great, slow-moving machine whose purpose was simply self-perpetuation, self-justification. The Brave New Europe had never emerged and, he believed, never would. All its processes were too tortuous and obscure without ever being fully productive. Thousands of civil servants sat in spacious offices dreaming up schemes for yet more intricate legislation to weave into an already complex tapestry of international rules and regulations. The only purpose served being to complicate further already difficult relations between member countries. And even when still no more than ideas, they often ran into hundreds of pages of fat, incomprehensible reports that had to go before the Council of Ministers. There they would undergo a lengthy process of review and amendment before those that survived would be sent, finally, to the European Parliament in Strasbourg or Luxembourg. And it too, Slater thought bitterly, was an impotent body, even after direct elections.

Had he not met Marie-Ange there would have been no hope. Now there was the chance of escape from it all – from the crippling cynicism and loneliness of Brussels, the memory of his wife, the worry of his daughter. Maybe now the child would have a real chance too. Specialist treatment.

But Bannerman’s arrival complicated things. What was he after? Only a few more days and Slater could leave all this behind him. Surely Tait couldn’t know anything. Couldn’t have sent Bannerman to find out. Could he? Gryffe wouldn’t have talked. He wouldn’t dare. Slater decided to take a chance. ‘What are you really here for, Bannerman?’

Bannerman frowned. He had sensed Slater’s uneasiness at their first meeting, and now this extraordinary behaviour over the file of cuttings on Gryffe. ‘I already told you,’ he said. ‘What’s your problem?’ He watched Slater carefully. But the reporter turned away and slipped the Gryffe file back in the cabinet and locked it. He turned again, hesitantly, to face Bannerman and seemed to consider what he should say.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t like you very much. Never have. And now you come over here, digging around where you’re not wanted, inflicting yourself on me for the next month, insulting guys I have to work with.’