The other two looked at him sternly.

‘The longer this situation persists, the harder it’s going to be to pick up the pieces afterwards.’

‘This situation will persist Malcolm, for as long as they say it needs to,’ said Sir Jeremy Bosworth. ‘We don’t have a choice on this.’

Malcolm sighed. ‘I know, I understand that we’re all in this together, but the level of attrition this situation is causing isn’t evenly spread, gentlemen. It’s hitting us much, much harder than others. I’m a little concerned that by the time the satisfactory conditions are met, there’ll be nothing left to salvage in this country.’

‘You’re exaggerating Malcolm,’ replied the other man, Howard Campbell. ‘We all need to remain calm whilst this is going on.’

‘Exaggerating? I wonder. You are aware of conditions out there aren’t you?’

‘Of course, it’s not pretty,’ said Sir Jeremy.

‘The safe zones we established to concentrate resources and manpower, are not forming up as we’d hoped. We simply don’t have enough manpower to maintain them; we don’t have enough troops on the ground.’

‘The troops are mostly back from our various commitments overseas, aren’t they?’

‘There are still significant numbers stranded abroad. And even if we had managed to get them all back home, we just wouldn’t have the numbers we need to do this properly.’

‘We have large numbers of territorials we can draw on don’t we?’

Malcolm nodded, ‘But hardly any have turned up for duty, and of the few thousand that have, many have already abandoned their posts. I might add, we’re also losing a lot of police officers.’

‘It’s understandable,’ said Jeremy. ‘People want to be with their families.’

Malcolm looked at him ‘Does that not concern you, though?’

Sir Jeremy nodded. ‘It’s a concern, of course it is. But we have to continue looking at the bigger picture. That’s what this has always been about, the bigger picture.’

‘Look, I’ll be honest. I’m worried that once they are happy that the goal has been met, the time it will take to get things running again will be too long.’

‘Now is not the time to start being squeamish, Malcolm,’ said Howard.

‘I’m not being bloody squeamish, Howard. I simply would like to have something left that’s governable once we’re done with this!’

‘Come on, Malcolm, let’s not squabble like politicians. We’re better than that.’

Malcolm nodded, ‘You’re right.’ He smiled at them. ‘I’m merely suggesting that we need to start thinking about applying the brakes to this thing. It’s picked up a lot more momentum than I think any of us really expected.’

Jeremy shrugged. ‘I must admit, I was a little surprised at the riots on Tuesday. Your man, Charles, did a superb job frightening everyone.’

Howard looked from one to the other. ‘You know we can’t do that. We can’t effect any sort of recovery until we receive word. You are bound.’

Malcolm sensed the veiled threat behind that one word. They did not readily forgive colleagues who acted alone.

‘It’s not starting a recovery procedure I’m talking about. I just believe we’ve perhaps been a little . . . over-zealous this week. We’ve achieved the required result far more quickly than our colleagues have elsewhere. I take the blame for that. I underestimated the fragility of this country.’

Howard leant forward and placed a gentle, supportive hand on Malcolm’s arm. ‘This was never going to be easy, we all accepted that. Future generations will no doubt judge us harsh, ruthless, cruel. But they will understand, Malcolm, they will understand.’