I looked closer at the big man in the furthest chair. He had one of those faces that make you think of uncooked pork; all waxy and plump. His hair was swept back from his forehead in a luxurious black quiff, the tufty grey at his temples the exact same shade as his three-piece suit, complete with pocket watch and a flower in his buttonhole. He was wearing thick spectacles, heavy enough to sink into the pudgy flesh either side of his nose. I’d met him four times. He didn’t remember me from one occasion to the next. I was, after all, just a housewife from Brampton, and his wife’s closest friend. He was Assistant Private Secretary to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It was Cranham Hemlock.

PART THREE

FELICITY

Transcript 0027, recorded December 1, 2016

I held my breath. Ignored the pain and the fear. Listened as the little man spoke.

‘You know who we are,’ he said, addressing the room. ‘You’ve heard rumours of a division within the intelligence service – an international cooperative designed to undo the worst excesses of the increasingly politicized world of intelligence and counter-espionage. We were established only a few short years ago but already we recognize it as a different age. You all know as well as I do that decisions taken by politicians need to be popular with the electorate – and the electorate is made up of the average man and woman on the street. Unfortunately, the average man and woman on the street is a self-interested, venal and frequently merciless creature. As such, we end up with politicians who will do whatever is necessary to ensure they remain in office – even if that means doing things that, if they were done by the enemy, we would think of as evil.

‘Well, now we reach a reckoning. Now we see how people react when the guns and the terror and the horror aren’t at the far side of the world. Tonight we bring the fight to their doorsteps and give you, these men of influence and power, the chance to prove you are capable of doing more than that which serves your own purpose. You are being given the chance to see what monsters you unleash into the world with every secret handshake and each memorandum dashed off and signed in between your long lunches and fucking your mistresses. This has been a long time in the planning, gentlemen. But by God, you will see …’