‘Where?’ he said, sitting up, aware of his clammy skin as the duvet slipped off his upper body.

‘Tunis,’ the voice in his ear said, adding in a sympathetic tone, ‘Sorry, Stephen.’

The voice belonged to Martin ‘Harry’ Palmer, Holm’s friend in SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, better known to the public and journalists as MI6. Palmer worked the North Africa desk and was Holm’s contact at SIS and his sometime drinking partner. They’d known each other for years, since way before either of them worked for the security services, and Palmer was an old hand to whom Holm could express his frequent dissatisfaction with work and life in general. If he wasn’t a friend then he was as close to one as Holm had, and Holm always appreciated the way Palmer managed to sound calm even when chin-deep in shit, his tone being similar to that of a weather forecaster reporting the possibility of a short rain shower: Pack an umbrella or a lightweight mac. Don’t worry, it’ll be brighter by the afternoon.

‘Tunis?’ Holm threw off the rest of the duvet, climbed from the bed and staggered from the bedroom. He headed down the hallway of his little flat and into the living room. The location given by Palmer had momentarily thrown him, and he tried to work the angles and come up with something that made sense. Nothing did so he picked up the remote for the TV and blipped it on. ‘How bad?’

There was a momentary pause before the answer came. ‘At least four UK citizens so far. Three other fatalities, a dozen critically or seriously injured. The total death toll could well rise into double figures.’

‘Right.’ Holm was staring at the TV screen, taking in the news footage at the same time as his mind began to run the numbers. The casualty figure was bad but manageable. The location – Tunis – was a nasty surprise.

Holm moved back into the hall and towards the bathroom, wondering if there was going to be time for a shower, thinking no, a squirt of deodorant would have to do. ‘Random or targeted?’

‘Targeted. It appears the attackers were after the head of a British-run women’s charity. She was killed along with a journalist who happened to be interviewing her at the time. The other dead are tourists: British, American, French and German.’

‘Shit.’ Holm worked the facts. American. French. German. Non-UK dead complicated the matter. For a moment he scolded himself for forgetting these were people no matter what their nationality. ‘Have we got anything from the Yanks yet?’

‘No, but BND has been in contact. They’re pretty upset at the misinformation you sent yesterday.’

‘Misinformation?’ BND. The Bundesnachrichtendienst. The German intelligence agency. Holm could imagine the director fuming at the killing of one of his citizens, irate that the warning the British had issued was so bungled. ‘That’s unfair.’