‘That is of the essence,’ the Editor said again. ‘And it is your responsibility to make sure he understands that. The reporter and the driver can pretend he’s noticed something wrong with the bus; that’s why they’re stopped. The driver asks everyone to get off for a few minutes while they’re on the hard shoulder and, when they get off, our snapper gets the shot of them lined up against the side.’ A complication occurred to him. ‘Which side are the terrorists on – inside or outside?’

‘Outside.’

‘So they won’t see the car?’

‘No.’

The Editor nodded and said, ‘Lucky. Brief your people, but tell them not to do anything until I say so. Warn your source about what’s going to happen. Keep him calm. Impress upon him that it’s crucial that he gives nothing away, for his own sake.’

While Anna rattled her instructions into the handset, a hush settled on the newsroom. Only Max kept working, untangling clauses, compressing paragraphs, inching the paper closer to edition. He said, ‘Will, Rosie, how’s that copy coming along?’ and, though he sounded unnaturally loud, they hardly heard him.

The Editor stood as if alone. Before him shimmered a wondrous image: the newspaper ahead again, ahead of every TV channel, every website, every blog and tweeter in the world on the story that every single one of them was chasing. An impossible thing, really. One last full-throated roar before the newspaper curled around itself to die. And if it went wrong, the liberal media would cut chunks out of him and the Beast. No one would defend him. If they blew the bus, that would be the end for him. Downfall. Ignominy. The thing he’d put his life into tainted, turned on, cowed.

The clock ticked towards edition. A new degree of greatness beckoned. At the centre of this crushing pressure, a wild thrill of delight ran through him. He remembered something from his schooldays:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss…

He felt strangely free.

On the M40 outside Banbury, the bus grunted and snorted with adjustments of speed as the reporter’s car pulled out to come alongside.

In the newsroom, the Editor said to Anna, ‘You can tell them to begin.’

Anna was holding herself so tightly she could only be laconic. Into the phone she said, ‘Alright, Ken, on you go, and start uploading pictures the second you can.’

Geraldine murmured, ‘Bombs away.’

The Editor felt a sharp unexpected pang for all he was gambling, and said, ‘Tell them to be careful. They must not – absolutely must not – spook the terrorists.’