Absent only was Shirley Grove, whom the Foreign Office was still trying to extract from Moscow: she had been the only member of the team arrested. She had denied everything, of course, and since there was no proof against her, the prime minister appeared confident she would be home in days, even if it cost them a concession or two in the meantime. Julie and Callum had made it out without incident, and Kate owed her life to Julie’s guess that her friend would opt to run south and subsequent decision to alert London to that fact.

They were still negotiating for the return of Stuart’s body.

Only Incisor’s fate remained unknown, another weight on Kate’s already burdened conscience.

She kept her eyes fixed on the screen, where the search bar moved with excruciating slowness.

There was a single match.

Danny hit the return button and there it was: the answer, the revelation of who was Dante.

Nobody moved or spoke. Kate felt giddy. She tried to stand, but dropped quickly into the chair again. Someone coughed.

In the silence, you would have heard a pin drop.

No one met her eye.

Eventually, she felt Julie squeeze her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Good God, Kate,’ the prime minister said. ‘That’s a bit of a bugger.’

Kate dared not look at any of them. Beside her, Danny stared resolutely at the screen. ‘You’ll require some time to get things in order,’ the PM said. ‘I understand that.’

Kate stood. She needed to exert some control here, to stop her head spinning. She had barely slept in the twenty-four hours since her return, and the conversations she’d had with her children had been the worst of her life. She couldn’t think straight, as though she’d been repeatedly punched in the face. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ And then, when no one spoke, she added, ‘I appreciate that.’

‘I’ll stay with you,’ Julie said.

‘We’ll have to talk to the Metropolitan Police,’ the prime minister added. ‘And I’m afraid there must be due process and a trial. The record must be set straight, in all its lurid detail. But I owe you the courtesy of a little space.’

‘Thank you,’ Kate said, still unable to look at him – or anyone else in the room.

Kate took her jacket off the back of the chair, then followed Julie out into the corridor and down the stairs to the garage. Once or twice, she had to steady herself on the wall or the stair-rail. Callum came with them and climbed into the front passenger seat beside Julie. ‘I’m afraid we have to wait for the Met,’ he explained.

No one spoke in the ten minutes they had to sit there, or during the drive afterwards. When they arrived at their destination, Callum said quietly: ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Henderson. But we’ve been instructed to give you only ten minutes.’

Kate nodded. What more could she have asked for?

She got out of the car and crunched across the gravel to an iron side-gate. She found her aunt Rose sitting in a wicker chair, drinking her morning coffee, a copy of The Times open on the table in front of her. She didn’t wish her niece a good morning, still less begin with any kind of excuse. She raised the cafetière before her. ‘Coffee?’