He realized it didn’t matter. All that could be investigated later. The thing now was to make the catch before anyone else noticed them. He had to go to the Editor’s office. He glanced at Rosie, who was absorbed in the story she was working on. Last night, with her, it had been like when the flint of a cigarette lighter is rasped in a room long filling with gas; he’d gone up with a whump. He hadn’t realized it had been so long since another person touched him. Now her black-and-white work clothes had re-straightened themselves into a professional casing; the buttons buttoned, the shirt no longer flapping open above him. She shouldn’t mind, he hoped, that he was going to leave her here in the newsroom, but he didn’t think there was any danger and, once he was travelling upwards, he could carry her with him.

The two intruders, still feigning their discussion, had drawn level with the back bench and stopped. Will had to twist slightly in his chair to see them there, over Jeremy’s shoulder, but kept his head straight so as not to draw attention.

They now appeared to be conferring for real and, as Will watched, they naturally, very naturally, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, sauntered towards a grey-painted door off the side of the newsroom. Will gripped his mouse. The older man pushed down the handle, pulled back the door and ushered his subordinate inside. As soon as he’d passed through, the older man followed him in and shut the door behind them.

Now, now, this was the time, while they were in there, before they could go somewhere else. Half-rising, he said to Max, ‘I’ve just got to nip out for a second.’

Annoyed by this unprofessionalism, Max said, ‘Make it quick.’

Will nodded deferentially. Without looking at Rosie, he hurried towards the corridor that led to the Editor’s office. As he cut through the newsroom, he saw everything as he imagined the intruders must see it. The soft, white-haired reporter Maurice was asking one of the Features girls, ‘But she must be famous for something more than having a large rear end’; Turkish Anna was spreading out printed-off pictures of the hijackers’ families, who’d been arrested overnight; Geraldine was almost horizontal in her chair, her wedges crossed on the edge of her desk, and was drawling into her floral-patterned phone, ‘He’s the archbish, you hopeless clot; his line should be that Muslim community leaders must start taking responsibility for their flock.’ One day soon, all this might be Will’s.