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accepted that quite readily. I was tired of running – that was the truth.
    When the children were asleep, I sat at the kitchen table and poured myself a small glass of wine. I opened the laptop, attempted to write something about Edna’s allotment – but giant marrows kept popping into my head. I saw myself through James’s eyes: I was just like a benign shepherd. Not even that, a well-trained and obedient sheepdog. I rounded my children up and chased them gently through the day, and even when they or I were asleep, one ear was always cocked, one ear pinioned by my duty. Gone were the days when I went leaping to the challenge of a good story. Now my role was to stay close, although James was apparently still free to roam, and I was too exhausted to argue.
    After about twenty minutes of desultory typing and deleting, typing and more deleting, I checked my emails for distraction.
    There was one from Xav with biog details of Hadi Kattan, which I perused quickly. He was a fascinating man. He was born in Iran. His parents and sister had been incarcerated under the Shah’s regime; he was the only survivor from his immediate family, thanks to being away at school in Britain. After their deaths he’d stayed here for some time, under an uncle’s wing, educated first at Rugby and then Cambridge. He had famously denounced Islam in his thesis, part of which was published to great acclaim and controversy in The Times , after which he’d rejected the literary career so many had predicted and had gone on to make his reputation as a brilliant but ruthless trader on the London and New York stock exchanges. He briefly headed the Equities division of the World-Trident Bank before moving into the art world and retiring early with a huge fortune. His wife, Alia, had died five years ago, leaving him two children. The rumours of political intrigue, and an al-Qaeda connection seemed unlikely to me, given Kattan’s political and religious background.
    Below Xav’s email was another, forwarded from Tina at the Chronicle .
    ‘ASH KATTAN: HOPE FOR THE FUTURE,’ the header said, and there followed a message from Tina: ‘Hadi Kattan is hosting a party at his place on Tuesday to mark the launch of his son’s political campaign: we’re invited. Perfect opportunity to ingratiate ourselves. Grab that lovely husband of yours and get a babysitter.’
    I contemplated it for a moment. I felt the adrenalin begin to course through my veins, and I knew, as I’d known all day, that I wasn’t going to be able to resist chasing the story.

UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 1991
Sweet roses … Of their sweet deaths are
sweetest odours made .
Sonnet 54, Shakespeare
Despite Dalziel’s apparent – if rather lackadaisical – enthusiasm for my help in the pub that night, I didn’t hear from him again. I was hugely disappointed, but not that surprised. Along with the realisation my brief encounter with him had been just a drunken fancy of his, my nebulous hope of acceptance into the upper echelons slowly died.
The Student Union put on a do on Saturday for Hallowe’en; resolutely I bought my ticket. Moany Moira was going home for the weekend, and I saw my chance. I had to make some proper friends. The theme was ‘Spooky ‘60s style’; I eschewed the normal array of ghosts and werewolf costumes, and went for a pretty spectacular multicoloured Mr Freedom jumpsuit I found in the local Oxfam and some plastic fangs. After an hour or so of pretending I was having a good time with a few people from the Poetry Society, bobbing around to the Bee Gees and Mama Cass, James arrived looking rather handsome as a be-fanged vampire in a Beatles suit, a besotted freckle-faced girl dressed as Twiggy in tow. James waved but didn’t come to say hello, and I felt a faint lurch as I watched the pair kissing passionately beneath fake cobwebs in the corner.
Surprised at myself, I drank too much cider, ending up cornered by an over-enthusiastic rugby player, a tall sandy-haired boy