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waved the apology away, visibly brightening.
    ‘This is Todd Llewelyn,’ he announced. ‘No introductions needed. He’s kindly offered to help us out if things get … ah … sticky.’
    The faces around the table offered Llewelyn a collective smile of welcome and Robbie watched him shedding the white trenchcoat, knowing now that the rumours had been true. Llewelyn’s was a well-known television face from the eighties. Square-jawed, eloquent, pugnacious, he’d presented series after series of hard-hitting documentaries. Now, somewhere in his mid-fifties, he’d been beached by the broadcasting revolution, his mannered front-of-camera delivery overtaken by a sleeker, glitzier style. Robbie had always wondered where men like Llewelyn ended up. Now he knew.
    The Director was beaming at the new arrival, like a child showing off his latest toy, and Robbie leaned back in his chair, trying to decide who’d made the first approach. Llewelyn, probably. Taking initiatives of any kind was something the Director generally tried to resist.
    Llewelyn slipped into the empty chair, eyeing Robbie across the table. The look – cold, hard, appraising – was unambiguous, an immediate declaration of war, and Robbie felt himself reaching for his pen, scribbling lines of nonsense on his pad, anything to hide his own fury. Appointing Llewelyn as some kind of media consultant would be typical of the Director, saving himself the embarrassment of confronting Robbie face to face. The Director wanted him out. And this was his way of saying it.
    ‘An update, Todd,’ the Director was saying. ‘You know about our Mr Jordan. We discussed that on the phone. But there are complications. Valerie?’
    With a glance at the others, the woman beside Robbie picked up her cue, addressing Llewelyn directly. For several months, she told him, Terra Sancta had been winding down its efforts in Angola. Plainly, the political situation was out of control. Three decades of civil war had brought the country to its knees and the recent elections had solvednothing. The MPLA, the socialist government in Luanda, had won a narrow victory but UNITA, their right-wing opponents, had refused to accept the result. UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi, had renewed the war and fighting had broken out again with pockets of violence flaring wherever government or Savimbi’s troops sensed an advantage. The countryside was emptying. The cities were choked. There were thousands of casualties, millions of displaced Angolans fleeing their homes. Under these circumstances, charities like Terra Sancta were helpless. There’d been much agonising, many meetings, but the consensus was plain. Angola was a basket case. Terra Sancta’s precious funds would be better spent elsewhere.
    Llewelyn listened to the briefing, his eyes never leaving Valerie’s face. When she paused for breath, he leaned forward, one finger raised, the pose familiar from a hundred prime-time documentaries.
    ‘So you’re pulling out? Is that what you’re saying?’
    ‘We … ah …’
    ‘Yes or no?’
    Valerie glanced towards the Director. The Director was looking uneasy.
    ‘We’re going through a process of re-evaluation,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Pulling out sounds a little … ah … harsh.’
    ‘But that’s what you’re saying. That’s what it means.’
    ‘Essentially …’ he conceded the point with a nod, ‘yes.’
    ‘And you’re embarrassed by the decision? Is that it?’
    ‘Not embarrassed, no. But we believe it may be open to …’ He paused, frowning.
    ‘Misinterpretation?’
    ‘Yes, exactly.’
    The Director smiled gratefully, accepted the proffered lifeline, and Robbie felt the blood rising in his face. He’d spenta lot of time in Angola. He’d seen the country at its worst and he loved the place. He’d never been anywhere in Africa that had so much potential: the oil, and the diamonds, and above all the people. The last thirty years would have crushed most nations but here they still