The reporter flinched, as if he’d been caught thinking about something quite else, then hurried towards them. But still there were a few seconds, painful for the Graphics man, in which he alone was responsible to Geraldine. She examined the map, her finger pressing a dell into the abstracted geography.

Jeremy recognized the net of thick and thinner streets and the buildings marked in greyish-blue. The map’s centre was Copper House and around it were three concentric rings, spreading across Kensington in angry, then paler tints of red. The first and reddest contained Copper House and their end of the High Street, taking in the square behind them and the blocks around it. The second, slightly diluted, menaced everything down to Earl’s Court, up to Notting Hill and east across a corner of the park to Kensington Palace. The third and widest ring, which was almost pink, lay across Hammersmith and Sloane Square to the south and Bayswater and Ladbroke Grove to the north.

Jeremy had recovered from the shock. His mind was as sharp and clear as a frosty morning. He stepped closer and said to Geraldine, ‘Where have you got this from? It looks like the whole of West London’s going to be blown up.’

‘Stephen,’ she said. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘It’s the map of the possible damage.’

‘I can see that, but this buffoon’ – she jerked a thumb at Jeremy, her bracelets jingling – ‘can’t tell the difference between a terrorist and the Princess Royal, and even he can see it’s ludicrous.’

The Graphics man gladly slid to the discussion’s edge. ‘Well,’ said Stephen, ‘our guy in the counter-terror advisory said there was a chance it would be a dirty bomb and that there would be fallout.’

‘A dirty bomb? Are you serious?’

‘He said it was a very real possibility.’

‘How real a possibility?’

‘He said it was definitely possible.’

‘How in Heaven’s name are four shopkeepers from Acton going to get their hands on a nuclear bomb? Anyone who opens the paper and looks at that is going to think it’s nonsense.’

Jeremy asked the reporter, ‘What reasons did he have for saying it might be a dirty bomb?’

‘He said it was a possibility they’d been worrying about for years.’

Geraldine: ‘That’s it?’

‘Well—’

‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but—’