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once.
    ‘Home, Secretary of State?’ her driver asked as he settled behind the wheel.
    She shook her head. ‘Thames House, please, Robert. I’m afraid it’s going to be a late one.’
    The drenched officers at the entrance to Downing Street – her husband would insist on calling them ‘the plebs’, like it was the funniest joke in the world – nodded respectfully to the Home Secretary as they let her out. Their numbers had been bolstered by four soldiers who carried their weapons overtly and stood with grim, expressionless faces in the rain. Bloody good job you could rely on your armed forces at a time like this, she thought to herself. She was on the verge of rolling down her window to offer them a few words of encouragement, but she shivered at the thought of the rain sluicing in and decided not to.
    As the car crawled through Whitehall, Gorman flicked through the front pages of the following day’s first editions that were piled next to her. The usual fodder. More photos of the devastation at Paddington on the broadsheets, while the tabloids had run with pictures of the nation’s current favourite hate figure, the radical cleric Abu Ra’id, one finger raised as he preached outside the Holy Shrine mosque in north-west London. She shared the PM’s frustration that every time they tried to deport this awful man, the courts got in their way. And all the while his dreadful wife – the papers liked to call her the White Witch – was living on benefits in a large three-bedroom house in Ealing . . .
    Ten minutes later, they were pulling up outside the archway that formed the entrance to Thames House. Robert parked the car and opened her door. The Home Secretary stepped out to find an efficient-looking young woman in a well-cut trouser suit waiting for her.
    ‘This way, Home Secretary,’ she said. The young woman ushered her into the building and towards an open lift. Once inside, she pressed a button for the third floor and they silently ascended. As the doors hissed open, the greeter stepped into the corridor. ‘May I fetch you a coffee, Home Secretary?’
    Gorman shook her head briskly. ‘No thank you. I need to see Victoria Atkinson right away.’
    The young woman inclined her head and led her down the corridors of the third floor without another word. She stopped outside a door and knocked.
    ‘Do come in,’ said a male voice.
    ‘I’ll take it from here,’ said the Home Secretary. She opened the door and stepped inside.
    The room was very ordinary. As a student of history, she had always imagined that important decisions were taken in important rooms, with chandeliers and frescoes. Now she lived in the real world, she knew the opposite was true. Life-and-death decisions got made in bland, corporate rooms like this one in MI5 headquarters. A man was sitting behind a desk. He was extremely handsome – the spitting image of Hugh Grant, Gorman couldn’t help thinking – and he had a friendly, open smile.
    ‘Where’s Victoria Atkinson?’ she asked.
    ‘Unavoidably called away,’ the man said. ‘A family crisis. Something to do with her youngest . . .’ He smiled. ‘I’m afraid kids are no respecters of national security. I’m Buckingham. Hugo Buckingham, on secondment from MI6.’
    ‘You’re one of the Hammerstone team?’
    Buckingham nodded gently. ‘I am, Home Secretary.’
    Gorman nodded, then took a seat opposite him. ‘Buckingham?’ she said, as though trying to place the name. ‘Sounds familiar. Weren’t you our man in Syria for a while?’
    ‘In a manner of speaking, Home Secretary, yes. A lively place.’
    ‘So I hear.’ She looked around. ‘The room is secure?’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘Right then. I’ve just come straight from Number 10. The PM’s been informed you have a lead on the perpetrators of the Paddington bombing. We made the decision not to convene a meeting of COBRA. Too many loose tongues, if you understand my meaning.’
    ‘I understand entirely, Home