Latifarounds the corner of the lower flight, the Uzi still slung at her shoulder.

‘Jesus,’ she says, when she sees the blood. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. I’m not looking at her. I’m bending over Benjamin, peering anxiously into his face. ‘Guess he fell.’ Latifa brushes past me and squats at Benjamin’s side, and as she does so, I glance at my watch.

Thirty-nine minutes.

Latifaturns and looks up at me.

‘I’ll do this,’ she says. ‘Take the lobby, Rick.’ So I do.

I take the lobby, and the front entrance, and the steps, and the hundred and sixty-seven yards from the steps to the police cordon.

My head feels hot by the time I get there, because I have my hands clasped on top of it.

Not surprisingly, they frisked me like they were taking a frisking exam. To get into the Royal College of Frisking. Five times, head to toe, mouth, ears, crotch, soles of shoes. They tore most of my clothes from my body, and left me looking like an opened Christmas present.

It took them sixteen minutes.

They left me for another five, leaning against the side of a police van, arms and legs spread, while they shouted and pushed past each other. I stared at the ground. Sarah is waiting for me.

Christ, she’d better be.

Another minute went by, more shouting, more pushing, and I started to look around, thinking that if something didn’t happen soon, I’d have to make it happen. Bloody Benjamin. My shoulders started to ache from the weight of my leaning. ‘Good job, Thomas,’ said a voice.

I looked to my left, under my arm, and saw a pair of scuffed Red Wing boots. One flat on the ground, the other cocked at a right angle, with the toe buried in the dust. I slowly tilted up to find the rest of Russell Barnes.

He was leaning against the door of the van, smiling, holding out his packet of Marlboro to me. He wore a leather flight jacket, with the name Connor stitched over his left breast. Who the fuck was Connor?

The friskers had fallen back a little, but only a little, out of an apparent respect for Barnes. Plenty of them kept on watching me, thinking maybe they’d missed a bit.

I shook my head at the cigarettes. ‘Let me see her,’ I said.

Because she’s waiting for me.

Barnes watched me for a moment, then smiled again. He was feeling good, and relaxed, and loose. Game over, for him. He looked to his left.

‘Sure,’ he said.

He bounced himself casually away from the van, making the metal skin of the door pop, and gestured for me to follow him. The sea of tight shirts and wrap-around sunglasses parted as we walked slowly across towards the blueToyota. To our right, behind a steel barrier, stood the television crews, their cables coiled about their feet and their blue-white lights puncturing the remains of the night. Some of the cameras trained on me as I walked, but most of them stuck to the building.

CNN seemed to have the best position.

Murdahgot out of the car first, while Sarah just sat and waited, staring ahead through the windscreen, her hands clasped between her thighs. We had got to within a couple of yards before she turned to look at me, and tried to smile.

I’m waiting for you, Thomas.

‘Mr Lang,’ said Murdah, coming round the back of the car, stepping between me and Sarah. He was wearing a dark-grey overcoat, and a white shirt with no tie. The sheen of his forehead seemed a little duller than I remembered, and there were a few hours’ worth of stubble around his jaw, but otherwise he looked well.

And why wouldn’t he?

He stared into my face for a second or two, then gave a brief, satisfied nod. As if I’d done nothing more than mow his lawn to a reasonable standard.

‘Good,’ he said eventually.

I stared back at him. A blank stare, because I didn’t really want to give him anything right now.

‘What’s good?’ I said.

But Murdah was looking over my shoulder, signalling something, and I felt movement behind me.

‘See you around, Tom,’ said Barnes.

I turned and saw that he had started to move away, walking slowly backwards in a casual, loose-limbed, gonna -miss-you style. As our eyes met, he gave me a small, ironic salute, then wheeled round and headed off towards an army jeep, parked near the back of the mess of vehicles. A blond man in plain clothes started the engine as Barnes approached, then tooted his horn twice to clear the crowd from around the front of the jeep. I turned back to Murdah.

He was examining my face now, a little closer, a little more professional. Like a plastic surgeon.

‘What’s good?’ I said again, and waited while my question travelled the immense distance between our two worlds. ‘You have done as I wished,’ said Murdah at last. ‘As I predicted.’

He nodded again. A bit of a snip here, a tuck there - yes, I think we can do something with this face.

‘Some people, Mr Lang,’ he went on, ‘some friends of mine, told me that you would be a problem. You were a man who might try and kick off the traces.’ He took a deeper breath. ‘But I was right. And that is good.’

Then, still looking into my face, he stepped to one side and opened the passenger door of theToyota.

I watched as Sarah twisted slowly round in her seat and climbed out. She straightened up, her arms crossed in front of her as if warding off the cold of the dawn, and lifted her face to me.

We were so close.

‘Thomas,’ she said, and for a second I allowed myself to plunge into those eyes, deep down, and touch whatever it was that had brought me here. I would never forget that kiss. ‘Sarah,’ I said.

I reached out and put both my arms around her - shielding her, enveloping her, hiding her from everything and everyone - and she just stood there, keeping her hands in front of her body.

So I dropped my right hand to my side, and slid it between our bodies, across our stomachs, feeling, searching for contact.

I touched it. Took hold of it. ‘Goodbye,’ I whispered. She looked up at me. ‘Goodbye,’ she said.

The metal was warm from her body.

I let her go, and turned, slowly, to face Murdah.

He was talking softly into a mobile phone, looking back at me, smiling, his head cocked slightly to one side. And when he took in my expression he knew that something was wrong. He glanced down at my hand, and the smile tumbled away from his face like orange-peel from a speeding car.