The chief said, ‘Good for circulation, this terrorism. Look at all the new readers we’ve got. But it doesn’t look like we’ve got as many people in our protest as Charlie Hebdo had. How many’s that there, a few thousand? They had more than a million and they weren’t even a proper newspaper.’

The landlord said, ‘A damn sight more than were at that Muslim protest saying “Burn the Beast”. It’s obvious what side the country’s on. That was only a few extremists.’

‘It’s the extremists that are the problem, though, isn’t it, barkeep? Or how many terrorists does it take to chuck a bomb? I just wish they’d get on with it so I could go into my final retirement.’

The landlord glared at the levers and kept pulling pints. The beer rushed white into the glasses, settling amber as it deepened. The chief took them as they were passed across the bar and distributed them in order of seniority, saying, ‘Keep up the good work, Jez,’ or ‘Keep on defying terror, greenhorn,’ or just, ‘Max.’ Anna asked for a double vodka and tonic instead.

The TV switched from the demonstrators to a photo of the man who’d been killed in his shop. The journalists and the regulars fell silent and watched. The photo showed a sunburnt man grinning heartily in holiday clothes and twisting in his chair to meet the camera’s gaze. He was wearing a novelty Australian hat decorated with dangling corks and raising a plastic goblet of some orange cocktail. Around him were what must be his extended family, cousins perhaps, similar-looking kids and adults in shorts and hats and sunglasses. The ticker line read, ‘First pictures of shopkeeper burnt alive in anti-Beast retaliation’. The journalists drank their drinks and fear shifted in them.

‘Could have happened anywhere,’ said the chief. ‘Even in a nice place like, ooh, Upper Bucklebury.’

‘You certainly stirred things up with that article,’ said the landlord. ‘They’re saying there’s gangs on the streets in Luton and Bradford with knives and crowbars, white and Muslim.’

‘If we weren’t on every English jihadi’s bombing wish-list before, we’re certainly at number one now. Maybe best to run us out of the village before the burqas turn up.’

‘That might well be true,’ said the landlord. ‘But the PM did a speech there, at the demonstration. He said we’re all standing side-by-side with the Beast. The whole country. Shoulder to shoulder. To show that that’s not what Britain’s about.’