They had spent all evening discussing the Carter case, sliding into the early hours. Sara Carter, it turned out, owned a cottage in Coggsbridge, a stone’s throw from Heathcote’s constituency home. They’d probably drunk in the same pub.

The Official Solicitor had moved to close a loophole in the existing injunction that would allow Sara Carter and the village she lived in to be named in Scotland. None of them wanted a repeat of the fiasco when a now-retired Home Secretary was splashed all over the Scottish press as the minister whose son had been caught drug dealing while England and Wales were banned from reporting it. Now there was social media to contend with too, and the growing sense that the injunction was on the edge of collapse.

He would grab a few hours’ rest on the sofa bed in his office. He had been asked to stay close by and, according to his wife, there were reporters crawling all over their London and Essex residences. While some MPs were cautious about funding second homes in the wake of the MPs expenses scandal and spent their Westminster working week in shared apartments or Airbnbs, the Heathcotes were independently wealthy. In the end, he had sent Barbara off to their Cotswolds farmhouse. A rural location and security gates would afford her some sort of privacy if matters got out of hand and the local freelance hack came sniffing at the door.

He sipped his second drink, aware that he needed to keep a clear head.

His problems were two-fold. Here were the facts:

Firstly, he was Secretary of State for Justice. His department was in charge of prisons. He had publicly urged for rehabilitation and support for all prisoners, especially young offenders. He had been caught, on a live mic, airing his personal views and calling for a return to capital punishment.

Lesser hypocrisy had seen off more high-profile careers than his.

Secondly, his assertion that Sara Carter should have been hanged for her crimes as a child had been spectacularly ill-timed. Ordinarily, his slip of the tongue might have blown over after a day or two, but the documentary featuring Shannon Carter had fuelled media interest – and so, inadvertently, had he. Once the press got the bit between their teeth, matters had a way of escalating.

He finished his glass of whisky and contemplated a third.

A soft knock at the office door stayed his hand.

‘It’s open,’ he said, surprised by the late-night interruption.

Anna, his mistress, walked in and shut the door behind her. She placed her handbag on his desk and folded her designer coat carefully over her arm. He stared at the swell of her breasts beneath her silk shirt. The sight triggered the same physical reaction it always did, and he shifted in his chair.

‘You’re not supposed to be here.’

‘I got bored waiting for you.’