If I tilted my rear-view mirror I could look up at the grand Victorian façade of the station hotel. It was like a castle in a fairy story, the turrets and spires rising up to a blue sky full of billowy white clouds. The kind of place where you blink your eye and a hundred years go by. I could not see any of the big boys. But inside the railway station hotel there were enough of them to start a small war.

Somewhere beyond the net curtains and drapes, SCO19 were waiting, the firearms unit of the Metropolitan Police. Every one of them would be armed with a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle and two Glock SLP 9mm pistols. But no matter how hard I stared I still couldn’t see them.

There would also be bomb disposal squads seconded from the RAF in there. Negotiators. Chemical and biological warfare specialists. And someone to order pizza. We also had maybe twenty people around the station but I could still only see the woman and the dog. The surveillance chatter continued.

‘All units report. Echo 1?’

‘No sign.’

‘Victor 1?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Tango 1?’

‘Contact,’ said a woman’s voice.

For the first time the piece of plastic stuffed in my ear was totally silent.

‘I have visual with Bravo 1,’ said the same voice. ‘Contact.’ And then a terrible pause. ‘Possible,’ she said. ‘Repeat – possible contact.’

‘Possible,’ the surveillance officer said. ‘Checking. Stand by.’ His voice was winding tighter now.

And then the woman’s voice again, and all the doubt creeping in: ‘Possible. Red backpack. Just passing the British Library. Proceeding on foot in an easterly direction towards the station. Approaching the grab zone.’

‘Delta 1?’

‘Copy that,’ I said.

‘And I’m off,’ Tango 1 said, meaning she had lost visual contact with the target.

I glanced quickly at the two photographs taped to my dashboard. I didn’t really need to because I knew exactly what he looked like. But I looked one last time anyway. Then back at the crowds.

‘I don’t see him,’ I said.

Then a more urgent voice in my ear. Another woman. The officer with the dog. It watched her intently as her mouth moved.

‘This is Whisky 1, Whisky 1. I have possible visual contact. Bravo 1 coming now. Two hundred metres. Far side of the road. Easterly direction. Red backpack. Possible contact.’

A babble of voices and a sharp call for silence.

‘Possible. Checking. Checking. Stand by, all units. Stand by, Delta 1.’

Then there was just the silence, crackling with static. Waiting for me now.

At first I stared straight through him.

Because he was different.

I looked quickly at the two photographs on the dashboard and he was nothing like them. The black hair was light brown. The wispy beard had gone. But it was far more than that. His face had changed. It was filled out, puffed up, almost the face of someone else.

But one thing was the same.

‘Delta 1?’

‘Contact,’ I said.