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sardonically as she left, closing the door behind her.
    In the hallway, her protection officer scrambled to his feet, giving her a slight start. Even after two years in office, she still wasn’t accustomed to finding an armed man in her hallway.
    She was assigned two protection officers and a driver. Simon had looked into the detail, but he had to admit that he had no idea who was tainted and who was not. Gut instinct told him that some were good men. Others he was less certain about, the one in her hallway being one of them.
    ‘Evening, ma’am.’
    ‘Evening, Harvey.’
    ‘I’m just going to use the phone in my office,’ she said.
    ‘It’s clear. I’ve just this second swept it,’ he told her.
    She thanked him, stepped into her office and retrieved a mobile phone from her handbag on the desk. This was the phone she used for talking to Simon. Just Simon. She dialled him, so that he could bring her up to speed on any developments.
    Meanwhile, outside in the hallway, the door to the lounge opened and the Home Secretary’s husband peered into the corridor. He caught the eye of the protection officer, gave him a nod and then disappeared back inside.
    The protection officer moved to the office door. From his trouser pocket he produced a listening device that he suckered to the wood, adjusting his earpiece in order to hear one side of the Home Secretary’s conversation.

CHAPTER 11
    IT WAS FOOLHARDY and went against his own instructions, but he couldn’t bear not hearing her voice. So, after ensuring he wasn’t being watched, he let himself into one of the last remaining working phone boxes in the whole of the United Kingdom and called her.
    ‘Hello,’ she said.
    The stink of piss in the phone box was almost overwhelming, but the sound of her voice transported him home, and he bit back a surge of emotion.
    ‘Lucy,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, my God. Shelley, it’s you. Are you okay?’
    ‘It’s Afghanistan without the IEDs.’
    ‘That bad?’
    ‘And worse without you or Frankie. How are you both?’
    ‘I’m all right. Daytime, I’m trying to keep the business ticking over. I think this is the first time I’ve ever been glad of the lack of business. Evenings, I’m dividing my time between bouts of worrying about you, Game of Thrones and Frankie.’
    He didn’t want to askabout the business. The sole upside of this whole venture was that he was temporarily released from worrying about the business. Then again, he realised with a jolt of shame, all that worry was now transferred to Lu.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I’m sorry to put you through all this.’
    ‘Just tell me it’s not out of guilt.’
    ‘It’s not out of guilt. It’s what’s right.’
    ‘Nothing to do with the fact that you think it could have been you in Cookie’s shoes?’
    ‘I told you, it’s—’
    ‘There are different sorts of guilt, Shelley. Guilt for something you did or didn’t do; guilt because you didn’t help someone. Survivor guilt; guilt because your wife chose you over your best friend.’
    He squeezed the receiver tight. In the background their kitchen radio played.
    ‘He understood, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘He gave us his blessing.’
    ‘Do the same for me now, Lucy. Let me do this thing knowing I have your support.’
    ‘You don’t have to ask for it. It’s there, always. Do what you have to do. Just come back in one piece.’

CHAPTER 12
    FOR THE NEXT two days Shelley stuck to Barron like glue. He wasn’t kidding when he told Claridge he didn’t have a plan, and time was wasting away.
    Then, that morning, shortly before the centre was due to close for the day, his chance came.
    Most of the night-time residents had shambled away. Among those last to leave was Shelley and the man he was shadowing, who throughout breakfast had been telling anybody unfortunate enough to be in the dining room that, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to earn some serious wonga.’
    His announcement sent Shelley’s mind