It was now that Adrian, the editor of the Thatcham and Newbury Echo & Advertiser, made the move he’d been planning: ‘Barry’s right. It’s not criminal charges that deal with this sort of thing; it’s exposure to public scrutiny, letting people know what they’re really like.’

There was a lot of nodding. ‘If people knew what they’re really like,’ said Gilbert, ‘they wouldn’t be in Trafalgar Square saying they’re Beast readers, that’s for sure. They’d never buy it again. I’m certainly never going to.’

‘You should do it,’ the landlord told Adrian. ‘Put it on the front page of the Echo.’

‘I’d like to, I’d like to very much,’ he said, feeling as brilliantly Machiavellian as the great Charles Brython himself. ‘But I don’t know if there’s quite enough on them.’

‘Not enough on them? Were you in the loos or something when they were in here?’

Adrian wobbled his head non-committally. ‘I was listening,’ he said. ‘But they’d just say it was a bit of arguing in a pub and everyone would think it’s only natural that they’re a bit wound up – and who’s to say what really happened.’

‘Who’s to say?’ The landlord was almost speechless. ‘It was more than a bit of arguing! It was more than… And you saw what they did to Ayub!’

The others were pained.

‘I did, Barry, I did. But to really get them, to really show people the truth – we’d have to get inside the building. If that was doable.’ There was a fluttering inside Adrian’s ribcage as he waited for the right person to speak.

‘They’ve gone and opened the door themselves,’ the policeman said defiantly. ‘You can walk right in. Along with any terrorists you meet on the way.’

‘Won’t I get stopped?’

‘Not if I took you.’

‘Would that be alright, to take me and him?’ He jerked his thumb at his young colleague, Gavin, who’d badly twisted his ankle falling from the Beast’s perimeter fence. He was sleeping it off on a narrow banquette behind one of the tables.

The guard thought for a while and then said, ‘Fuck it. As long as you say you just sneaked in yourselves. If they’re stupid enough to leave the door open, they should get what’s coming to them.’

The landlord, impressed, said, ‘Good man, Dave.’

Gilbert felt too overwrought by this drama to say anything, but picked up his pint in approval.