She had gradually made herself less visible, wearing modest, fuller clothes. It had been an almost subconscious process; when she occasionally analysed it, she wasn’t sure whether it was more the consequence of her individual violation by Kareem or of the violation of the world beyond. She was unresolved about Islam as a religion, still lacking a deep-seated faith and sceptical of the afterlife, but admiring its discipline and calming prayers. She was on a journey of discovery, and when she saw that the Queen Vic’s Islamic Society was hosting an evening with leaders from the ‘Islam in the Community’ campaign, she went along.

The President of the Society led prayers: ‘Bismillah hiram maan niraheem…’ Then two figures walked on to the platform.

She wanted to flee but in this close-knit group it was impossible without making a scene. He was as tall and lean as ever, the black hair wavy and lustrous but longer, hanging down over his collar, his fine-boned face now supplemented by a shortish, groomed beard running in a neat line from one ear and around his chin to the other. He was dressed in a free-flowing white robe. The handsomeness aimed at saintliness, a prophet for the contemporary world. He spotted her instantly and smiled. She was trapped.

The woman alongside him she did not recognise. She was also tall, a sky-blue silk scarf over her head, strands of blonde hair pushing through its edges like tiny shoots in cracks of paving. Her face was roundish, her skin pale and unblemished, with a prettily snubbed nose and cupid lips. Together they looked ethereal.

‘Brothers and sisters,’ began the president, ‘we’re privileged to have with us this evening Kareem and Maryam from Islam in the Community…’ Sara remembered her conversation with Salman four years before. The girl he’d called Marion had become Kareem’s convert and adornment.

Kareem related with his customary precision of speech how the post 9/11 world had awakened the visceral prejudices of the Christian and Jewish West against Islam. ‘So what are we to do? What does Islam in our community now mean?’ Sara scanned his listeners, a few eagerly attentive, others blank-faced or looking down at their hands, perhaps wary.

‘What is our own personal struggle – our jihad – to be? Do we – as in the bad joke of Christians, who aim cluster bombs at innocent families and children in Afghanistan and Iraq, while claiming allegiance to their prophet’s instruction to turn the other cheek – do we accept and submit? Or do we fight? And what are to be our weapons? Words only? Or must there now be more than words?’

When he finished, the few who’d shown rapt attention clapped loudly; beyond them the applause was lip service. One or two kept their hands to themselves, ignoring the disapproving looks.