I thought of the two protestors held back by one uniformed cop in Wembley.

‘But that’s not the same as doing it,’ Carol continued. ‘And besides – the style’s all wrong.’

‘You mean abduction and the mock trial and the hanging?’

‘All of it. The masks. The drama. The little hashtags. Why hang him? There are far easier ways to kill someone.’

One in the head and one in the heart.

Jackson Rose, I thought. Who the hell are you?

My phone began to vibrate.

‘We’ve got Abu Din,’ Edie said. ‘And he’s alive.’

21

‘Inshallah, there was a mighty fire,’ said Abu Din. ‘And it was revealed to me that this country is Dar al-Harb – the land of war.’

Edie looked at her notes.

‘So this was when they burned the van just down the road from Brent Cross, right?’ she said. ‘This is when you had your revelation about the land of war? At Brent Cross?’

He turned his face away from her, the pink tip of his tongue flecking his lips. He smoothed down his grey robes and stared out of the window of his home. It was as if Edie had never spoken. I followed his gaze. On the street where they had taken him, his followers were already gathering, excited at the news of his miraculous return. Some of them were praying. Others were taking pictures with their selfie sticks.

Abu Din had been found alive at London Gateway service station, on the very edge of the city. He had spent the night locked up in the back of an abandoned container lorry until he eventually kicked his way out and raised the alarm. Perhaps his followers were right. It seemed a miracle that his execution was not being watched on YouTube.

‘Please tell me everything you remember, Mr Din,’ I said.

He nodded, his eyes behind the wire-rimmed spectacles flicking on me and then away.

‘Allahu akbar,’ he murmured, not for the first time. ‘They took me. The men in their masks. And then they burned the first vehicle and put me in another vehicle. Then we drove to the car park with many lorries. The big lorries.’

‘Container lorries,’ I said.

‘And all of them gathered around me as they locked me in the metal box.’ His eyes swivelled to the heavens. ‘But the metal was weak, Allahu akbar, and it was not my time to die.’

I looked down at his sandalled feet, both of them bandaged, both of them weeping blood where he had spent the night kicking out the rusted side of a container lorry.

‘Did they say anything?’ I asked.