‘No, and neither has Jack from the Art desk, that yellow-bellied mummy’s boy. And a few milksops from Features, Diary, the gentler departments. They’ll never work on Grub Street again. But what about you, Jez, spotted anyone else with your X-ray news-vision? Got your jihad goggles on?’

‘Nothing so far,’ said Jeremy, much pleased by how things were turning out. He supposed he had his job back.

‘Now would be the time, though, wouldn’t it? All of us bunched close together outside the building – imagine what a nail bomb would do. Wipe out half the newsroom. If I was a jihadi, I’d be at an upstairs window in one of those houses right now, warming up my throwing arm.’ They glanced uneasily at the opaque upper windows in the block of flats nearest them. ‘The sooner we get out of London, the better. You don’t notice how packed it is with Muzzers till you start looking. And we don’t want to give the Strumpet a great front page: “Beast staff massacred; chief sub tells of survivor’s guilt”.’

Max looked at his watch. ‘At least it would be too late for them to get it into their first edition.’

Jeremy said, ‘But Frank, aren’t we going to have every hack in London watching everything we do? I just saw at least a couple of snappers outside the barriers.’

‘No no no no no, it’s all different now. We’ve got unmarked police escorts from here to Berkshire. A few of our esteemed colleagues from the Brute tried to tail the first buses to go off this morning and Plod sent them to cool their heels in the cells at Ladbroke Road. You see, little Jezzy, you’re in the big leagues now.’

Jeremy was impressed. He’d have to tell Louise. It might reassure her a little. Then again, it might not.

The chief thrust his chin at Max, saying in a tone almost of reprimand, ‘I take it you saw one of your headlines was on Front Page last night.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Max, pretending that he hadn’t watched it with his wife. ‘Which one was it?’

‘The one about Kate Kloss and Edith Bohler. “You can’t have your Kate and Edith too”.’

‘Hm,’ said Max the Magnanimous. ‘They’re not great at choosing them – that wasn’t the best yesterday. And you know, the kid had a good one.’

‘What, Will?’

Max shrugged as if to say that knowing the names of rookie grunts was none of his concern.

‘Dr Filth?’

‘No. The one about the psychic parrot. “Polly sees a cracker”. Unusual headline.’

The chief didn’t smile. ‘Too silly a story for Front Page. Too obviously bullshit. Psychic parrots? How full of crap would a newspaper have to be to print something like that?’