Javed got up from his station and walked off, and Holm turned to the far wall where a towering bank of screens showed news reports, live operation maps, stock prices and currency rates. A glance at one of the screens told Holm the Tunisian dinar was under pressure. The markets were spooked. Tourists had only just begun to return to the country after the atrocities a few years back at the Bardo National Museum and the resort of Sousse. Now they would stop coming once more and the foreign exchange the country needed would dry up.

Holm refocused on his own screen. He needed to rustle up some kind of supporting document. Bullet points. A graphic or two. Concluding remarks. He bent to the keyboard and flicked his fingers over the keys.

‘Stephen.’ His name sounded cold and harsh, an icicle spiking into his right ear. He turned to see Fiona Huxtable beside him. ‘Nice of you to join us.’

Holm had more than ten years on Huxtable but he couldn’t help thinking of his boss as a stern headmistress, him as the naughty schoolboy. The image was one he was sure she cultivated. Her stick-thin body was always bulked out by a thick tweed jacket and skirt, but whatever she wore did little to disguise her angular figure. Bony, a colleague of Holm’s had described her as, and he hadn’t only been talking about Huxtable’s appearance.

‘I came as soon as I heard.’ Holm began to rise out of politeness, but Huxtable’s hand pressed down on his shoulder and held him in his seat. ‘Seven dead. Not good.’

He didn’t know why he’d said that. The casualty numbers only served to compound his error and that it was not good was bloody obvious.

‘The latest figure is nine.’ Huxtable’s gaze flicked to a nearby screen and then back at Holm’s monitor. She appeared to be reading the three bullet points Holm had managed to think up. ‘Unsubstantiated reports? Is that the best you can do, Stephen?’

Holm opened his mouth to say something. He was aware of Huxtable’s hand still resting on his shoulder. A reminder she was in control. That he was in her grasp.

‘My office in one hour with something better than this crap.’ She removed her hand. ‘And don’t even think of mentioning you-know-who, OK?’

With that she was gone, leaving Holm in a sweat as he struggled to add something meaningful to his document. Something that didn’t involve you-know-who.

Chapter Three