At the far end stood number thirteen, looking out on this dull bit of South London with dirty, apathetic windows. The small front garden was an unruly cultivation of grasses boxed in by privet. The front gate seemed determined not to let her in but she’d got past better security in her time. April Shining prided herself that there was not a building in the land that could keep her out if she was on form. She had once dropped in on Tony Blair to give him a piece of her mind and ended up staying for a distinctly awkward afternoon tea. If you were forced to describe her in one word you would likely fall back on ‘indomitable’ but you would consider ‘terrifying’, ‘incorrigible’ and ‘dangerous’ first. Unlike her brother, April hadn’t followed a linear path through the Civil Service. She had flitted from one department to another, from the foreign office to a brief position in the Cabinet. She had dallied in various offices, embassies and battlefields during a long and amusing life.
