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fingers find a promising obstruction, right where Will left it, near the back and off to the left. But it’s stuck too well for me to prise off. I’m going to need some scissors. My work station is part of a small open plan area and a few people have left their own seats to take a closer at what I’m doing. I ask them if they have any scissors, which is their cue to melt away again.
    I effect a quick but thorough search of Will’s desk. No scissors in any of the drawers.
    The door to Alex’s office, which was firmly shut, is now wide open. He has come out into the corridor and is watching me.
    I ask him if he has any scissors.
    He tells me in his ‘I’m so very concerned about you’ voice that he doesn’t think scissors are a good idea.
    Nahash . Viper.
    Then I spot some, poking out of someone’s plastic desktop organiser. I stride over and retrieve them, before dropping to my hands and knees and crawling under my desk. It only takes a few seconds to cut free the memory stick from its duct tape chrysalis but while I’m still under there I take the opportunity of cover to slip it into my pocket. There are two pairs of men’s shoes next to my desk now – and if I know the security staff in this building, and I think I do, my guess would be that they like to wear exactly this kind of no-nonsense, shiny black footwear.
    â€˜Hello gents,’ I greet them as I emerge from beneath the desk, ‘just getting rid of some gum.’
    I put the scissors down. They are immediately picked up.
    Now no one really knows what to do. I stand there smiling.
    I call over to Alex, ‘Alright with you if I pop out for a bit?’
    He just looks at me.
    â€˜I’m going to pop out for a bit,’ I tell the goons, who seem unsure whether to let me pass or not. They glance at Alex.
    He shrugs and turns back into his office.
    Right then. Time to get out of this faithless hive.
    Just to make sure, the security guys escort me all the way to the lobby, clumping along at my side. I stand between them in the lift. We listen to its rigid cables lower us to the ground. Not a finger is laid on me, not a word is exchanged. At the big glass doors, they watch me step out on to the pavement.
    It’s a massive relief to break the hermetic seal of that interior. Back in the open, I realise just how oppressive it was in there. It takes me a couple of seconds to get used to it, the rush of all thesepeople again, dozens of them skimming past, heads down, intent on their course. It’s like I’m waiting to join a river – it needs to work back through me again, as water passes through the gills of an unwanted catch. When I’m ready, I twitch back into the flow and head north, leaving the shadow of that sepulchre behind me.
    But even when I’m well shot of it and am enclosed in the tumult of the tube station, there’s still a certain sadness that I’m struggling to shrug off. I do not want to be playing this role. I do not want to be typecast as the Disobedient Son, courting everyone’s displeasure. It sits heavy in my gut.
    â€˜This is not about me,’ I tell myself.
    I get a couple of looks, but so what? It’s important I have my head straight before I sit down with Natalie and finish this thing off. Or else I may as well just step back into the shadows and be done with it.
    â€˜This is not about me trying to clear my name.’
    I am jammed into one of those lifts that transport people from the surface down to the trains.
    â€˜I am doing this for the common good. For all humanity.’
    Deep! Deep! Deep! go the doors of the lift as they slide apart, sluice gates for this flow I’m in.
    It is only now that I realise, down in this burrow, that I’ve forgotten to call Natalie to tell her I’m coming. Never mind. Let the news arrive unannounced. Let it come worming through the ground to her, surfacing at her threshold. A gift from below.
    I