‘But I can tell you,’ she continued, ‘that today FRE terrorism has become the fastest-growing domestic threat we face here in the UK. In 2018, the year we started to really notice the uptick, we saw a thirty-seven per cent spike in far-right referrals to government and by the end of 2019, we had as many subjects of interest from the far right being referred to deradicalization programmes as we did jihadists. Now …’ she removed a small ball of white fluff that had attached itself to the sleeve of her jacket ‘… what’s happened on Svalbard has taken us into a whole new arena and, frankly, we’re still sprinting to catch up. Until now FRE attack planning in this country has been pretty basic, what I would call “Terrorism 1.0”. Crude pipe bombs, knives, the odd bit of arson targeting a mosque. Not that I’d want for a moment,’ she spread her hands in a placatory gesture, ‘anyone in this room to think I’m playing it down, because I’m not. These groups have been busy. We know they’ve been studying the tactics of ISIS and reading their manuals online. But this? A departure into bio-terrorism? This is a whole new ball game and it is, if you’ll pardon my French, serious shit.’

Louise Band paused to take a sip from a cup of water, a green, reusable eco-cup, Luke noticed. He reminded himself to hurry up and get one before someone reprimanded him for not using one.

‘Okay,’ she continued, wiping her lips with a paper tissue. ‘So what exactly, you might ask, is this extremist ideology of theirs based on?’ She looked around the room, then answered her own question before anyone else had a chance to. ‘You know, with ISIS, it was relatively simple. It was all about reviving the Caliphate in some form or other, punishing anyone who got in their way, then putting those punishments online as a warning to others.’ She started to pace up and down at the front of the room. There was really not much to relieve the eye in this place, Luke noted. Just a single massive TV screen at one end, a clock, a long, horseshoe-shaped table around which they all sat, and a row of barred, shaded windows. The bland, functional business of counter-terrorism.

‘But these guys,’ Louise Band continued, ‘the right-wing extremists? Well, they’re big on conspiracy theories. Who here has heard of the great replacement theory?’

A few hands went up. She scanned the room, nodding in appreciation. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Okay, that’s a good start. So this is one of their core beliefs. It’s the idea that Europe’s white Western Christian population is being systematically replaced across Europe – at a cultural level – by Muslims from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africans crossing the Mediterranean on rafts. Yes, ma’am, you have a question?’