Holm felt a buzz of excitement each time he recalled the message. Was this the beginning of the end for Taher? Slowly it dawned on him that here was the solution to his problems. A way to make amends, get his mojo back and, quite possibly, finish his career on a high note.

Javed arrived at nine in his now customary manner, carrying two coffees on a cardboard tray. Holm nodded his thanks and reached for the piece of paper which had been stuck to the door of the office earlier in the week.

The Top Top Top Secret Department.

‘See this?’ Holm held up the note. ‘This isn’t wrong. Not the way I’m going to play it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘This says it all. Tells you everything you need to know about what people think of us.’ Holm flapped the piece of paper in the air again. ‘We’re a laughing stock. The has-been, washed-out time-server and the wet-behind-the-ears recruit. What relevance could we possibly have? Whatever we’re investigating must be trivial and hardly worth a moment of anyone’s time. We’re going to be ignored down here in our broom cupboard. If anyone thinks of us at all it will be as an afterthought. We’ll be mentioned in jokes over lunch, but the big boys will be concentrating on loftier matters.’

Javed looked disappointed. ‘But Huxtable said we’d be working on something important.’

‘Important?’ Holm tapped himself on the chest. ‘If that was the case, then what the hell am I doing here? No, Farakh, your career is at an end before it’s even begun. You’ve fallen at the first fence, spun off at the end of the straight, blown your load before—’

‘All right, I get it.’

Javed poked at the froth on his coffee with a wooden stirrer and Holm let the silence build. After a minute he spoke.

‘What do you know about the animal rights lobby?’

‘Hey?’ Javed cocked his head on one side as if he’d misheard. ‘You mean the people who break into laboratories and stuff?’ He dumped the stirrer in his cup. ‘Nothing, boss.’

‘Well, I’ve decided that’s our brief. No one cares about animal rights. It’s not sexy like Islamic terrorism or espionage or threats to our national infrastructure from foreign governments, but there you go. Now, because we know nothing, we won’t be accomplishing much in the first couple of months. We’ve got to do research and map out our strategy. Lay the groundwork, build from the base up. Actually producing any meaningful results is a long, long way in the future.’

‘You’re kidding me, boss? This isn’t what I signed up to do. I speak fluent Arabic, I’ve got a degree in Middle Eastern Studies, my MA thesis was on the rise of ISIS, I know sod all about torturing bunnies.’