I turn around, even though I know he doesn’t mean me. Thomas Thorne has never so much as grunted at me before. Tall, lanky and pressed in a dark suit, he looks like an ironing board. Come to think of it, most of the wannabe reporters around here do. It is as if they think it won’t matter that people can barely tell them apart, when in fact all they care about is just the opposite – making themselves the centre of attention.

‘Yes, I’m sure you have,’ Olivia snaps, forehead still creased as she pulls her phone back out of the fridge. ‘Fire away…’67

I try not to smile as he gapes at her. Maybe that’s why she does the fridge thing. An instant delaying tactic. Everyone wants a piece of her, so she’s got to have a few tricks.

‘Come on, Thomas, spit it out…’

‘My contact on Andromeda,’ he says, after a moment. ‘You know the one I told you about…? They want to meet, and it has to be now, ahead of the Met’s official briefing later. It’s obviously connected … I’m sure I’m going to get us a scoop. So I wanted to check if I could…’

‘Excuse me, what? An official briefing? On Operation Andromeda, no less? From the Metropolitan Police? Today? Was that scheduled? And if it was, exactly how is it that I wasn’t told about it before now?’

Her frown fades to surprise as I have to prop myself up against the coffee machine. Andromeda. Just using the word, just saying it out loud, unlocks a door into the past for everyone in this country. The Met’s botched investigation into sexual abuse in the military – the doubts that became reasonable, the charges that couldn’t be proven, the scandal that will never die. The untouchable British Army, down but not out. It never could be, could it? What is a nation without an army? Or worse, an army without a nation? We live to serve. No one knows which came first.

I shiver as I remember, coffee machine pinging brainlessly behind me. But Thomas doesn’t skip a beat, adjusting his already perfect collar.

‘It seems it missed our diaries … caught everyone on the hop. It’s not just us, I called around to double check. But the Met assure me it has been planned for a while. Two pm sharp, apparently, at New Scotland Yard. They are offering it up live too – they’ve practically cleared the street for the broadcast trucks already…’

‘That is extraordinary,’ Olivia says, as icy as the phone in her hand. ‘A press conference on a national disgrace missed our diaries? And exactly who have you had in charge of our diaries? 68The camera pool? Blithely ignoring every scheduled live press conference so they don’t have to be the ones to turn up and shoot it?’