Max said, ‘OK. We can do it here, after “The four men”. So…’ He typed as Geraldine spoke: ‘The four men – who had all absconded from bail on charges related to terrorism…’

Max interrupted. ‘Can’t we say “terrorism charges”?’

‘Not really, it’s—’

‘OK.’ Max retyped: ‘The four men – who all jumped bail on terror charges… When was it?’

‘The second.’

‘Two weeks ago.’

‘And then we can pick up again.’

‘…all belonged to the infamous West Acton Mosque.’

‘We’ve got two “all”s in that sentence.’ Max deleted the first. ‘And that’s not strictly accurate. The West Acton Mosque is a different place. This one’s the West Acton Community Centre and Friday Mosque.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘The other one’s moderate and litigious. We’ve had trouble with them before.’

‘So do we have to be careful about how we refer to this place?’

Geraldine was pained. The West Acton Mosque’s libel case had gone all the way to court. She’d had to appear. ‘You carry on. I’ll get the lawyer.’ As Geraldine shouted for the Legal desk, Max had an instant in which to hit Ctrl+Tab with his thumb and forefinger, bringing up the pages to revise. As his eye flew down the columns, his fingers, like those of a master potter with his apprentices’ work, quickly snicked off twists of clay or thumbed loose joins together. While he did, he said, ‘Will, you start proofing out our pages. Rosie, we need that Blind Bulgarian story right now.’

Rosie was caught in an agony of indecision. She’d re-nosed the story as Max instructed, but now it didn’t fit properly into the box.

A message popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. Her friend Caroline, on B pod, had written: ‘There’s a rumour we’re all going to move into some kind of bunker. WTF, we have a BUNKER?!’ Rosie nearly cried. If Caroline had time to write messages, all her stories must be through. She must just be proofreading. Rosie sneaked a glance at the electronic board showing which pages had been sent. The whole back of the book was already away. They were as far forward as twenty-two, this page, and even some pages ahead of it had gone. She was panicking. Her mind was sliding off the words as if off wet glass. She could not get her grip. She was not actually doing anything.

From the corner of her eye, she saw someone rush up to the chief brandishing an A3 proof. The chief turned and shouted, ‘Kill page twenty-one, darling! Kill twenty-one!’

The head pairer, the one who sent the pages to the printers, called back in confirmation, ‘Kill twenty-one. Kill twenty-one.’ Then picked up the phone that went only to the presses and said, ‘Kill page twenty-one, all editions. Twenty-one is coming again.’

Max said, ‘Rosie, where’s that story?’

She said, ‘One minute.’

‘Thirty seconds.’