Only then did the rest of the room come into focus. Only then did Sam recognise it. It was a room from his childhood, the lounge of the house where he had grown up. Jacob was standing in front of the three-bar electric fire that had stood for as long as he could remember in the grate. With a jolt he realised that to one side, sitting in a comfortable armchair, was his father – younger, more vigorous. And on the other side, one hand squeezing the other in an expression of undisguised despair was his mum.

Sam didn’t understand. His mum was dead.

‘What have you done, Sam?’ she whispered, and he realised that up till now he had forgotten what her voice sounded like.

Both parents looked at him, and then at Jacob. His thirteen-year-old brother’s face was pale now. When he collapsed it was almost in slow motion. A pool of blood spread unrealistically around his head. Sam couldn’t tell whether he had taken a few seconds to die, or an hour.

He looked back up towards his mother, but she was no longer there. He opened his mouth to call her name, but before he could do so his father was suddenly in front of him. Max looked young and strong. He stretched out his arms and grabbed the barrel of Sam’s gun and pulled it into the flesh of his lean stomach.

‘Kill me!’ he hissed.

Sam shook his head.

‘Kill me now!’ insisted his father. ‘You might as well.’

Sam tried to pull the weapon away, but his father was too strong for him. Far too strong. The older man held the weapon firmly against him and, staring Sam straight in the eye, used his other hand to fumble for the trigger.

‘I didn’t mean it…’ Sam heard himself saying. ‘I didn’t know it was him…’

But by then, it was too late.

It was the sound of the dreamlike rounds discharging into his father’s spectral body that woke Sam. He sat bolt upright and as the bright morning sun beamed through the windows it took a moment for him to work out where the hell he was. Then he remembered. He looked to his side: there was no one else in the bed. Climbing out, he pulled on his clothes and only then did Clare appear in the doorway.

‘I got up early,’ she said. ‘Before you could sneak out.’ She smiled to show that it was a joke, but they both knew it wasn’t.

She too was dressed, in the same clothes that she wore last night. Leaning against the frame of the doorway it was clear to Sam that she was trying to look cool. Unsuccessfully. The worry lines in her face were still all too evident.

‘I have to go,’ Sam said shortly.

Clare nodded, unable to hide her disappointment.

‘You’ll be okay,’ he told her. ‘I told you last night, if they wanted to…’ He chose his words carefully. ‘To get rid of you, they’d have done it already. Those spooks that came here, you’ll probably never see them again.’

Clare didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t say so.

‘Can I call you?’ she asked. She looked momentarily surprised that she had blurted out the question. ‘I mean, look, don’t worry. I know what last night was. I’m not going to ask you to marry me or anything. I just mean, can I call you, you know, if I need to? I won’t make a nuisance of myself.’

Sam pushed gently past her, doing his best not to catch her eye. ‘I don’t think you should,’ he said.

‘Why not?’ Clare replied weakly.

‘It’s too easy for them to track your calls. Mine too. You want my advice? Forget you ever saw me. And don’t mention anything of this to anybody. Ever.’ They were in the kitchen now. Sam turned to took at her. Clare had her arms wrapped around her, embracing herself as though no one else would.

‘I won’t see you again, will I?’ she asked quietly.

Sam narrowed his eyes. ‘No,’ he replied. There wasn’t any point stringing the girl along.

She nodded with the expression of a child coming to terms with something difficult to understand. ‘You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Sam.’ She tried to make light of it, but when she spoke again her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Those people,’ she said. ‘At the training camp. Are you… Are you really going to kill them, Sam? After everything I’ve told you, is that really what you’re going to do?’

The question hung in the air. Sam looked darkly at her. Any number of responses came into his head, but he knew none of them would be appropriate. He looked towards the back door. He would leave that way. Just in case.

He walked up to Clare and lightly touched his fingers to her cheek. The skin was soft and warm.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell anybody I was here. I have to know I can trust you.’

She looked steadily into his eyes. For a moment she didn’t respond. When she did, her question came out of the blue.

‘Why’s your brother there, Sam? What’s he doing?’

Sam refused to allow any emotion to show on his face. Clare was making him address things he was trying not to think about. What did Jacob’s presence at the training camp mean? It was an MI5 facility. Was he being held captive? Was he being forced into something? Once more, his father’s conspiracy theories flashed through his mind. He did what he could to subdue them. They made no difference to what he had to do.

‘I have to know I can trust you.’ He ignored Clare’s question and repeated his own.

‘You can trust me,’ she said quietly.

He nodded. Somehow he knew she was telling the truth.

‘I have to go,’ he said, and without another word he raised the blinds, unlocked the door and slipped back out into the garden.

Jamie Spillane looked at his watch. Midday. Maybe he had slept or maybe he hadn’t. In any case he was still lying on the bed wearing the same clothes from last night. The rumbling in his stomach was telling him it was time to eat. He pushed himself heavily on to his feet and surveyed the debris of fast-food packaging on the floor around him. Jesus. He’d only been here twenty-four hours and it already looked like a shit hole. Smelt like a shit hole, too. He probably wasn’t too fresh himself, but the thought of taking a shower in the grubby communal bathroom wasn’t very appealing.

He grabbed his wallet and stuffed it into the pocket of his baggy jeans, then left the room, taking care to lock the door behind him. There were other people staying here, as well as a nosy landlady, and he could tell that they would rifle through his room without a second thought if they reckoned they could get away with it. He knew, because he would do the same. Fortunately, though, he didn’t bump into any of them as he descended the three storeys of uncarpeted stairway, opened the main door to the faceless mid-terrace which housed the room he was renting and stepped out into the street. The sun was bright today. It made him wince, like an insect on an upturned brick. Instinctively, he pulled his hood over his head. It didn’t keep the sun out of his eyes, but it did make him feel more comfortable as he tramped down the pavement.

It took a while to find a supermarket. There were plenty of shops in this run-down area of North London, but they mostly sold cheap booze and cut-price phone cards. By the time he saw the familiar blue logo, he’d been walking for a good twenty minutes and was, he realised, a bit lost. He shrugged. He’d soon find his way back again. It wasn’t like there was anything else in the diary, after all.

The shop was almost empty; the few customers were elderly, pushing or carrying almost empty baskets of ready meals and cheap teabags. Jamie wandered the aisles aimlessly. He put chocolate milk and sandwiches in his basket before approaching the checkouts. There were only two of them open and so, despite the relatively few customers, each till had a queue. He joined the shortest and waited.

There was only one customer ahead of him when his mobile phone rang. Jamie pulled it out and looked at the screen. No number was displayed; to his surprise he noticed a little lurch in his stomach as he wondered if it might, just possibly, be Kelly. He placed his basket at the end of the counter and started to offload his purchases onto the moving belt with one hand. With the other, he answered the phone.