It was far too vague, but still the Editor was not wholly displeased. It had the solid ring of hard news: sixteen dead in a terror attack on British soil and the Beast was breaking the story in print. While he considered, questions flickered quickly around the pod. Will told Jez: ‘It’s Bedfordshire Police.’

‘Not Constabulary?’

‘They used to be called that, now Police.’

‘And the burnt shopkeeper’s from Luton?’

‘A part called Bury Park, where the Muslims live. Bury with a u.’

‘Age?’

‘Forty-eight.’

Max said, ‘In the pro-Muslim comment piece, are all burqas banned in France?’

‘Anything that covers the face. So hijabs are OK.’

Will laughed with the elation of making jokes right on deadline and Rosie asked her reporter again, ‘But how can they have gone after the cousin before they got the tip-off?’

He pushed his glasses up his snub nose and shrugged. ‘Maybe they got another tip-off from someone else.’

Rosie’s fingers had leaked a grubby curve on to the keys and the mouse. It was as if there was a bubble trapped in her throat that stopped her breathing. In her head the only words she could form were, ‘If they can’t even get that right; if they can’t even get that right…’ and out loud she said, ‘But that doesn’t make any sense!’

‘We’re right on deadline; can’t we just fudge it?’

She almost shrieked, ‘I know we’re on deadline! There’s no way to fudge it. It’s all about the times. Can you check your notes again? Maybe there’s a—’

The Editor was saying, ‘Now show it to me with the picture of the bus. That’s it. Now what’s the line?’

Thwaite suggested: ‘Is it:

16 KILLED AS

FIGHTING BREAKS

OUT ACROSS THE

BRITISH ISLES?’

‘Too many words,’ said the Editor. ‘And it makes it sound like an enormous fucking bar brawl. No, it’s:

16 KILLED

AS BRITISH

CIVIL WAR

BREAKS OUT’

‘Civil war?’ said Thwaite. ‘But we had war on the cover this morning.’

‘Armed gangs on patrol, women beaten and forced into burqas, two people shot, a man burnt alive, sixteen killed by the other side, an attempted invasion of our compound – if it’s not a war, what the fuck would you call it?’

Geraldine spoke up: ‘Should we have eighteen killed in the headline, with the shopkeeper and the one the cops popped this morning?’

‘No, it’s too confusing. What it wants is a strap underneath explaining that—’

And Max said: ‘Now, Rosie, I need that story right now. Just put it down if you can’t finish it.’

‘I’m almost there, just a—’

And Will said to Jez: ‘That cross-head about Rouhani, Terror Family – might it not make readers assume the two on the bus are actually related to the original four, especially because—’

‘What should it be then?’

‘Terror Network.’

Max said: ‘Change it.’