Jeremy stared at the map and his hands squeezed each other involuntarily. Geraldine was right; it really did look like something dropped from a plane. The whole building destroyed. He asked the reporter, ‘Did your guy say what end of the spectrum was more likely?’

‘No, he just said this was the range of what they might be able to build.’

Jeremy ran his eye over the red circles curving across the squared edges of buildings and streets, as if to reassure himself they weren’t a mirage. ‘We can make it the upper end of the range, since that’s as likely as the lower. But let’s keep it short of Kensington Palace, because close by will be enough to make the point it’s under threat without making the Palace think we didn’t tell them Kate and William were in danger. And then, so the map doesn’t look too empty, could we do routes of attack, likely escape routes, distance to their houses, the mosque, that sort of thing?’

Geraldine: ‘Do we have that information?’

Stephen: ‘Yes, we do. Those places are all a few miles west, though.’

Jeremy: ‘Then we do a map on a scale wide enough to see all that, and around here, do one of those magnification circles.’

Geraldine asked the Graphics man, ‘Would that look good?’

‘Yes, absolutely. Um, what colour do you want the route lines and—’

‘Red, everything red. And make a panel explaining what the three circles mean. Stephen, give him that copy. And you,’ she said to Jeremy, ‘now you’ve woken up, I want you to look at all the copy we get through. You’re the only one who’s seen the bombers, so read it and tell me whether you notice anything.’

The chief must have been listening in because he bundled himself over to them. He and Geraldine nodded warily at each other. It had been months since they’d exchanged a word. He said, ‘Geraldine, I know this story has tits like watermelons, but if we’re going to get it off on time, we can’t afford to lose one of our most experienced subs from now till deadline. How about Jez here goes back to his desk and carries on subbing and when you get copy through, you ping it over for him to read? If he notices anything, he’ll tell you.’

Geraldine, knowing that disagreement would become a test of wills, said: ‘Fine,’ and turned away.

The chief, for the second time that evening, guided Jez away from the Newsdesk. As they walked, Jeremy’s fingertips were quivering with excitement. He told the chief: ‘They’ve got another source. It’s for real.’

‘Have they done anything to protect the newsroom?’

Jez felt a little thrown that in the shock of the moment he hadn’t thought of that. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to secure the building! We’ve got to—’