Far off in North London, Max and his wife were having sex. He’d returned home wreathed and mantled in glory and, as he moved in her, his wife called to him, ‘Maximus, oh, Maximus!’ It was a nickname he wouldn’t admit that he’d ever heard (not even to her) but to his ear it rang out like the chanting of a crowd.

And afterwards, once his panting had ebbed, he was able to tell her, with relish, that he would miss the entirety of her parents’ visit. He would be too busy defying terror; they could take themselves out for lunch.

*

In South Kensington, the Editor prowled the cavernous gloom of his empty house. The streetlamps cast a grid of shadow on to the wall beside him, and a dark spray of leaves swayed across it. His heels clicked on the immaculate wooden floor, but he cared nothing for whether it was immaculate or not – his housekeeper kept the place furnished – and his head was full, as always, of tomorrow’s news. He was deeply moved by the thought that these terrorists were inflicting fresh trauma on the survivors of the 7/7 attacks. Moved and resolute. He would not let their suffering go untold; a Saturday feature, perhaps. A heartbreaking interview with a 7/7 widow.

Once he’d paced off that thought, he descended to the one room in the house he really thought of as having anything to do with him. The cellar had been arranged as a personal study ever since the house was chosen by his then wife, whom he’d now almost wholly forgotten. He’d furnished it as his father’s had been: rich with leather, dark wood and down-shaded lamps. Just visible beyond the circle of lamplight were archiving cupboards in which he himself, when on holiday, filed the news sections from the Beast. The pages, neatly suspended though they were behind their rows of doors, gave off a remnant of predatory intent, like a wolf’s pelt.

The Editor opened the cupboard directly behind his desk, pushed the pages aside with the back of his hand and lifted from its hiding place a wooden shoebox his father had given him. He put it on the desk, beside the framed photograph of his son, and sat down. Inside the box were warped photographs, some cheaply made medals for service in Africa and Italy, a few letters on translucently thin paper, a plain grey cardboard box of ammunition and his father’s service revolver. With two hands, he reverently took the heavy, dully gleaming pistol from the box and began, as on many a reflective evening before, to clean and oil it.