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claiming the credit for the whole thing.’
    ‘Then let’s leave it that way. No more cracks about heroes, okay? If anyone asks then it’s Americans murdering Muslims and we need to stand up to them blah blah blah. You got that?’
    Malik nodded. ‘I hear you, brother.’
    ‘Where’s the remote? I want to check the other channels. Let’s see what the BBC are saying.’
    Malik groped under a cushion, pul ed out the remote and tossed it to Chaudhry. ‘You think we should cal John?’
    ‘Let’s wait until he gets in touch with us,’ said Chaudhry, flicking through the channels.
    Shepherd’s BlackBerry rang when he was in a black cab a mile from his rented flat in Hampstead. It was Charlotte Button. He took the cal .
    ‘You’re back, then?’ she said.
    ‘Almost home,’ he said. ‘I’m in a cab.’
    ‘We need to talk, obviously.’
    ‘Yeah. Obviously.’
    ‘Do you want to do it tonight? I can swing by your place.’
    ‘It’s a mess,’ said Shepherd. ‘But yes, we need to discuss a few things and the sooner the better.’
    ‘I didn’t know what was going to happen,’ said Button. ‘You know that if I had known I’d have told you.’
    ‘Yeah, I’m not sure that the fact they kept you in the dark inspires me with confidence,’ said Shepherd, as the taxi pul ed up at a red light.
    ‘Be with you as soon as I can,’ said Button, ending the cal .
    Shepherd’s flat had been supplied by MI5 as part of his cover. He was a freelance journalist and the flat was in keeping with a journalist’s lifestyle: a cramped one-bedroom flat in a side road off Hampstead High Street. The taxi dropped him outside and Shepherd paid the driver. The taxi drove off just as Shepherd realised that he hadn’t asked for a receipt and he cursed under his breath.
    The flat was in a block built during the sixties to fil the gap left when two mews houses were demolished by a stray German bomb during the Second World War. Shepherd’s flat was on the second floor with a smal sitting room overlooking the street, a bedroom at the back, a smal shower room and a kitchen that wasn’t much bigger than the shower room.
    He let himself in, tapped in the burglar alarm code and then dropped his kitbag behind the sofa before taking a quick shower.
    He was combing his stil -damp hair when the intercom rang and he buzzed Button in. He had the door open for her when she came up the stairs, and as always there was the briefest hesitation when it came to greeting her. A handshake always seemed too formal but she was his boss and a kiss on the cheek always seemed somehow wrong. She made the decision for him, putting her right hand on his arm and pecking him just once on the cheek.
    ‘Good to see you back in one piece, Spider,’ she said, moving past him into the hal way. She was wearing a black suit and black heels and her chestnut hair was loose, cut short so that it barely touched her shoulders.
    ‘I’ve got wine,’ said Shepherd, closing the door. ‘Or are you driving?’
    ‘I’m being driven,’ said Button. ‘One of the perks. So anything white would be good, preferably without bubbles.’
    Shepherd went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. ‘I’ve got Frascati.’
    ‘No Pinot Grigio?’ asked Button.
    ‘Sadly, no. I’m a freelance journo, remember?’
    ‘Then Frascati it is.’
    ‘Screw top, I’m afraid.’
    Button laughed. ‘Corks are overrated.’ She took off her jacket and sat down in an armchair. It and the two-seater sofa were the only places to sit and there was no dining table. ‘Cosy, isn’t it?’ she said as he walked in from the cubbyhole of a kitchen.
    ‘It’s close to the Heath so I get to run whenever I want to. And it’s close enough to Stoke Newington so that I can be over there in a hurry if necessary.’
    ‘Have you fixed up a meet with them?’
    ‘I wil do,’ said Shepherd, sitting down on the sofa with the bottle of wine and two glasses. ‘So, you had no idea that they were going to kil