On the morning of the day of the delivery, I was called in urgently by the Robbery and Serious Crime Squad to draw up an inventory of the contents of a box, as well as a hard drive containing items written in Arabic which had been seized during a search the night before at the home of two thieves who had just been arrested. Two young guys specializing in geriatric home invasions, and whose modus operandi consisted of passing themselves off as gas company employees.

I sat down in one of the offices and emptied the box, item after item, noting down, as I’d been asked to do, everything I found — namely, the perfect internet-Islamist kit.

1. One text in Arabic entitled The Solution: speech given by Tamin Al Adnani, a jihadist who died in 1989 after fighting against the USSR in Afghanistan.
2. One text in Arabic: The Obligations of Jihad by Abdallah Azzam, known as “the heart and brain of the Afghan jihad,” who died in Peshawar in 1989.
3. One booklet: The Meeting, subtitled Rules to Follow When Recruiting an Aspiring New Jihadist. Author unknown.
4. One booklet: The Lawfulness of Martyrdom Operations. Author unknown.
5. One CD with a sleeve containing an Arabic text entitled Democratia that included a 120-minute-long speech by Sheik Abu Musab al Zarkawi. The audio version of the speech was interrupted by sounds of gunshots and jihadist singing . . .

And that’s why I refused to do translations in terrorism cases. It wasn’t the first time I had done this sort of work and you always found the same sort of intellectual hardware with these types who had been radicalized via the internet. People think that the translator helps to foil plots . . . Well, maybe one time in every thousand they provide some assistance in this regard, but the 999 other translations they do involve hours of exegesis of the words of the Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) written by moronic cretins, radicalized by reading the Quran for Idiots. It’s unbearable!

1. A sixteen-minute video showing jihadists slitting soldiers’ throats.
2. A collection of war-like hadiths entitled Paradise is our Reward.
3. Two photos: Mahdi Al-Yahawi and Jaber Al-Khashnawi, inghimasi from Le Bardo in Tunisia bathing in a sea of blood.
4. A video of Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani entitled To the Soldiers of the Caliphate of Europe . . .

While I was conscientiously making a note of all this to an audio backdrop of chanted poems, a young cop from the unit — a sweet, sporty kid I’d been working with for a couple of years, who believed in the triumph of good over evil and who always smelled of mint chewing gum — came over. In response to his querying look, I showed him the photo of Al Baghdadi on the CD I was playing; for the occasion, he had abandoned his troglodyte al-Qaeda look in favour of something more modern, having trimmed his beard and put on some black clothes.

“They’re nasheeds, a capella versions . . .”