The fourth and last Bombing spread would be what they called a smorgasbord: a picture of the terrorist Kayani as a teenager, playing cricket on a village green like a real English boy; the news piece about the Impartial; messages of solidarity from publications around the world, complete with their mastheads – the Kansas City Star, Die Frankfurter Allgemeine, Il Corriere della Sera, the Jerusalem Post, the Straits Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and many more. Once the Editor had sketched the layouts on the flatplan, he checked his watch again and said, ‘Get the paper made. Anna, I want to know the instant your people find that bus.’

They went to work, but around them terror was gathering again. It was as if the air itself were thickening – filling with strands of anxious thought that held them like insects in a web, each one’s twitching further agitating his companions. They kept glancing away from their desks, up at the clock, at Anna and at the bright bank of screens projected on to the back wall.

Will was relieved to be assigned some copy. To sit quietly while the terrorists came for them felt increasingly insane. He’d been given the hastily knocked-up news piece about the Impartial, but his mind ran across the letters too quickly to grasp them.

He looked across at Rosie. Patches of redness stood out under her eyes and on her cheeks; and, though she no longer seemed about to bolt, she didn’t seem to be actually doing anything. She’d been assigned the softest story, about Kayani playing cricket, under the headline ‘Why do they hate us?’ He wanted to ask whether she was alright, but thought that she wouldn’t want to speak to anyone after the humiliation of crying in the newsroom. It occurred to him with a pang that this might be the end for her at the Beast.

He looked again at the opening of the story and again the fuzz of words sped meaninglessly past his eye. But gradually, reading and rereading, he began to distinguish the black marks. The first paragraphs read:

The Impartial has sparked outrage after it was accused of political point-scoring in a time of national crisis for criticizing the Beast, say MPs.

The newspaper, which is owned by Russian oligarch Vadim Andropov, has filed an incendiary complaint with the Metropolitan Police, accusing the Beast of incitement to religious hatred, and another with IPSO, the regulator, about the Beast’s alleged failure to report what it knew about yesterday’s attempted bombing to police in good time.

There was a lot to do, and a NOTE TO SUBS at the bottom: ‘Outrage to follow. Am calling MPs.’ The only quotes so far were from the Impartial’s complaint to IPSO and from the policeman who appeared to be in charge of hunting the terrorists. Assistant Commissioner Nigel Willis had said: