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meteorologists. “We’re experiencing a superthermic episode,” enthuse TV weathermen, as yet unable to invent a simple antonymfor “ice age,” and the words
deforestation
,
desertification
, and
de-glacierization
crop up daily.
    The ill-tempered rhetoric over the impending visit is exacerbated by the relentless hot spell, and Bliss is taking heat from some of his colleagues.
    â€œIt’s all right for some,” sneers one chief inspector at Wednesday morning’s site visit, as he sees himself frying by the roadside for hours on Friday while Bliss sits in air-conditioned comfort. “Some pinky-assed people get a year off the job to live in France and write a poxin’ book while the rest of us sweat our bollocks off.”
    â€œSo?” Bliss questions.
    â€œWell, where is it then?” Lester Clarke demands angrily. But it’s not the book that is bugging him. It is the fact that Bliss has been parachuted into the driver’s seat ahead of him.
    â€œI thought writing it was hard enough,” admits Bliss. “But apparently it’s almost impossible to get published.”
    â€œWaste of bloody time if you ask me,” snorts Clarke as he storms off, and Bliss is beginning to wonder if his colleague doesn’t have a point.
    â€œPrime targets,” says Commander Fox, directing his clutch of senior officers to the relevant page as they stand on the spot where the Queen will be presented to the imams and mullahs. “Toilets — and not necessarily a bomb. What if someone snuck a mini surveillance camera into a loo? A bootleg video of the royal backside hitting the seat and the sound of a royal tinkle would be priceless.”
    Across the road from the mosque, a team of eight workers tart up the façade of the public library. The days of whitewashing coal heaps and erecting hoardings around public toilets and other unseemly sights to spare the Queen’s sensibilities may be over, but savvy councillors still know that the best way to get potholes fixed and a new coat on a public building is to host a royal walkabout.
    â€œI bet she thinks that fresh air smells like wet paint,” cracks Bliss under his breath as he watches a couple ofpainters atop a cherry picker artistically decorating a lamp standard that no one will ever see from the ground without binoculars.
    â€œI don’t want too many uniforms lining the streets,” carries on Fox, knowing that the easiest way to get a poke in the eye from the palace is to be visibly heavy-handed. “Her Majesty expressed concern at the cost …” a rebuke to the commissioner, copied to the Home Secretary, will begin, and he’ll be writing apologies for a month. “Hide them round the back; stuff them into buses; take off their uniforms and try to make them look human.”
    A pickup truck laden with paving stones and sand pulls onto the pavement and two workers begin unloading tools as Fox goes through the manual: parade times; radio call signs; plainclothes officers’ identification badges; code names; refreshment facilities; prisoner handling; use of deadly force protocols … the list appears endless, and Bliss tunes out, knowing the details by heart.
    The sound of a pickaxe punctuates Fox’s orders and draws Bliss to the curbside where the Queen is due to dismount from the royal car.
    â€œAw’right then, guv’nor,” says one of the workmen as Bliss takes an interest in the truck’s contents.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” asks Bliss.
    â€œAin’t you ‘eard, guv? The bleedin’ Queen’s comin’ Friday. Can’t ‘ave her Ladyship trippin’ over, can we?”
    â€œNo,” agrees Bliss, “we can’t.” But he watches worriedly for a few minutes as he realizes how easy it would be for the men to slip a remotely activated mine under the stones that they are realigning.
    By Wednesday afternoon desperation has drawn