Aisha and her cousin Leila, whom Jeremy had seen outside Copper House the day before, fast-walked down a long, stuffy, sleeve-like tunnel reaching out from one of Heathrow’s terminals, went through the industrial atrium at its end and stepped into the aeroplane that would take them home.

A few hours earlier, Aisha had flumped on to the sofa and turned on the TV, glad to have a break from sightseeing. At first she’d only half-followed what was happening on screen. But understanding had crept up, then seized her all at once: the Whole Foods sign, lunchtime yesterday, two figures in burqas. The police had already shot two Muslims.

She shouted for Leila, who came and saw. And Leila, who, despite her interest in new restaurants and fashion magazines, had a sensible heart, told her to book the next two seats to Abu Dhabi while she scooped her jewellery into a bag.

By unspoken agreement, Aisha and Leila omitted to put on their burqas when they left the flat. It was the first time Aisha had been uncovered in public since she was a little girl and her face felt as raw as after a plaster is torn off. No one looked at her. Leila didn’t seem to notice being uncovered, almost as if she’d forgotten that this was supposed to be unusual. Aisha was beginning to think she’d underestimated her cousin.

They found their seats, fastened their belts and did not speak until the plane’s rear wheels made their unnatural lurch and gave up contact with the ground. Safely off British soil, Leila spoke over the engine’s muted howl: ‘I never really liked it that much there, anyway. The air was so dirty.’

‘Me neither,’ said Aisha. She’d already taken Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire out of her handbag. She ran her thumb down one softened corner, letting the translucently thin pages escape upwards one at a time, and thought with a glimmer of innocent childish malice how sorry her father would be that the holiday he’d forced her to come on had turned out so badly.

25

The Editor did not return to his office, but went from section to section, rearranging his staff to close the gaps left in the ranks by those who’d run away. The Beast really was on a war footing now. He felt like Baden-Powell in besieged Mafeking, putting fake soldiers on the walls to trick the Boers. While the bus grew in his mind like an approaching meteor, he moved unhurriedly between the desks and pods, inspecting the troops. The desk editors escorted him around their sections; he asked questions and remembered names, promoted a new Features editor and flattered them with his belief in their steadfastness. Many glanced at him when, with a hissing and then a hollow clunk, the air supply was turned up and the outside door swung shut.