‘But it’s not the kind of shoulder-to-shoulder where he might get blown up as well, is it?’ said the chief. ‘He means the kind where he gets to go to Trafalgar Square without being heckled and be a statesman for the afternoon.’ He put on a mock-posho’s voice: ‘“We will not let them divide us; we will unite behind my leadership.” It’s probably how he imagined being PM when he was just a little lad in Savile Row shorts. He thought one day he’d have the chance to say: “We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets and in the marginal constituencies, and we shall never lose the next election.”’

The journalists laughed loudly, but the landlord pointed the remote at the TV and the screen went blank. Looking at the chief, he seemed to be deciding something. Then he forced a certain geniality into his manner and said, ‘I’m sure you’ve all had enough of that. You’ll be a bit shaken up, bit overexcited. Bit of gallows humour. Only to be expected. That first round was on the house. Who wants another?’

The journalists were flattered. They tilted the ends of their pints into their mouths and put the empty glasses on the bar with much thanking and joshing. The landlord said to the regulars, ‘Drinks for you, too, chaps. We’re all together at a time like this. Same again?’

At that, the regulars, too, were pleased and began to shake hands with the journalists. One of them, a shy little man with a bald dome, round spectacles and a maroon cashmere jumper, lifted his voice enough to tell the journalists, ‘You see, we’ve been, well…’ From the bar in front of him he lifted a folded copy of that day’s paper, grown baggy as the inside pages shifted out of alignment. He let the bottom half drop to show them the front page:

MUSLIMS

DECLARE

WAR ON

BRITAIN

The journalists made a small cheer and the chief asked him, ‘So you’re a reader?’

‘Not only the Beast. I’m not one of those people who never looks at another newspaper. But, yes, I do have a subscription.’

‘And have you signed up to BeastPlus, the reward scheme, like a good reader?’

‘Yes, yes, I have, actually. Just for the wine mainly. They have some good offers sometimes.’

‘Good lad,’ said the chief. ‘Keeping us all in pints.’

The landlord, pulling the drinks, said, ‘You know, I was a policeman when all this was happening before, with the IRA.’

‘A cop?’ said the chief.

‘A policeman.’

‘The Micks were a better class of terrorist, weren’t they, more our kind of people. Wanted to kill everyone else, not themselves. Everyone can understand that. You should ask Jez about them; he likes Ireland, don’t you, Jez?’