Leila nodded, unable to help in any way. Aisha said this place did a shaved pomegranate salad that Leila just had to try. But Leila didn’t understand why anyone would want to shave a pomegranate; couldn’t you just cut it open and eat it like a normal person? But she didn’t say that, because they didn’t know each other all that well, despite being cousins, and she felt that her parents had slightly forced Aisha to hang out with her. It wasn’t that her cousin had done anything to make her feel unwelcome – far from it; she’d taken a few days off work to show her around – but Aisha was already in her twenties and seemed to have so many friends and other things she could be doing. She probably didn’t care about this pomegranate salad either, but had had to find something for Leila to try while in London; and, now that it had become a thing, they were going to carry on looking for it.

Leila resisted the urge to get petulant. But in fairness she hadn’t even wanted to come to London. She’d wanted to spend the college holidays at home reading Game of Thrones and imagining she’d come into the world as Daenerys Stormborn instead of as a doctor’s daughter from Al Bateen. But her mother had laid on the guilt, reminding her again and again how excited her father was about the trip he was giving her – how he’d never have dreamed of being able to go to London at her age, and all of that.

At least volume four of Thrones had travelled with her and, this morning, while one part of Leila’s mind was willing her cousin to take her time getting ready, Daenerys, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, the Mother of Dragons, had set about subjugating the insolent slave-owners of Meereen. Now the book was lying fat and unread – the Khaleesi paused, the swarm of arrows arrested in flight, the catapult straining at its tether, the city-state of Meereen waiting, just waiting – in the bag on her hip. She felt a bit stupid wearing it under her burqa, but with all the pickpockets there might be in a foreign city, she’d decided it was better to be careful.

5

Up in the newsroom Jeremy was saying, ‘They were standing outside, pointing up at the offices.’ And as soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew it was just a figment, the mind making purely personal associations.

The chief asked, ‘What offices?’

‘Us, our offices. The Beast. It’s ridiculous; the funny thing was that it reminded me for a second of that story—’

Max quoted, ‘Deadly terror gang escape dressed as women.’

The chief nodded. ‘Good story, that. Murderous Muzzers in women’s clothes. One to frighten the kiddies.’