Trying to block all this out, Rosie questioned Ben, the pudgy reporter, who was looking at her screen: ‘It says here that the police caught Kayani’s cousin hiding under his car at 10:18 this morning.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But that can only have happened after they interrogated Kayani’s brother.’

‘Yes, he tipped them off.’

‘Then how can they have only raided the Kayani family house at 11:35?’

‘That’s definitely right; I got it straight from the police who were there.’

‘But how can they have arrested the cousin before they got the tip-off?’

‘Oh, I see what you mean. Let me just check.’

He flipped open his notebook and ran his eye across the squiggles and hieroglyphs of his shorthand, which he always found difficult to read back. Rosie wiped her palms on her thighs and flicked her gaze at the clock. Somehow it had jumped forward. Eleven minutes to deadline. The chief called out, ‘Page sixteen! Sixteen is away!’ They were almost at the Terror pages. She tried to calmly reread the text on her screen.

Max, noticing her look up, said, ‘Rosie, where’s that spread?’

‘It’s almost there, just sorting the times.’

‘Get it in. That spread’s got to go. Will, so does that comment piece.’

‘I’m just putting it down. Do we have a style on hijab?’

‘On what?’

‘Hijab – the headscarf rather than the burqa.’

‘Our style is headscarf.’

‘OK, done. The story’s in revise.’

‘So you’re clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jez, do you need him?’

‘Yep, Will, can you check the name of the police force in Luton?’

The chief appeared and said, ‘Max, sweetheart, Newsdesk have got quotes from the slag they wrapped in a burqa. I’ve assigned it to the page as an add.’

Max ran his hand once, quickly, over the gelled furrows in his hair. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Nothing to change the angle, and not exclusive. Just a statement with reaction, but it’s good.’

‘OK. Jez, that has to go in high up. Will, check names and facts.’

Will snapped back the answers as he found them, thrilling to his own ability to hold its pace.

The Editor told his advisers: ‘I want this headline written. What have you got?’

Max brought up the front page on his screen and, while they tried, carried on revising his pod’s copy in a window at the bottom. The numbers called out by the chief were falling rapidly towards the front of the book. Without looking up, Max said, ‘Rosie, I need that story. Do what you have to do. Put it down now.’

Rosie wasn’t putting it down, but Max had to switch back to typing the headline attempts that came from the group behind him:

16 DEAD IN

NEW JIHADI

ATROCITY