But when they entered the dining area they were greeted by thick black smoke coming from the direction of the kitchen. They headed down the corridor towards it, but when they tried to enter they were beaten back by flames. The fire from next door had spread at an alarming speed.

‘Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to get out the back way,’ said Nadeem.

‘Or the front,’ Idris added, staring hopelessly at a wall of flame blazing across the shopfront.

Malik looked at the others. ‘I don’t think we thought this through properly,’ he said.

Back in the newsroom, Elyas and his reporters watched the drama unfold online. The news helicopter showed plumes of smoke pouring out of the travel agency, the surrounding streets swarming with rioters, like locusts, beyond control and demolishing everything in sight as the police looked on, helpless. All they could do was wait for the violence to subside.

A local TV reporter was interviewing self-styled community leaders, local MPs, councillors and one university expert, who grabbed the microphone: ‘I have a question,’ he said. ‘How long do people endure you riding roughshod over their lives before they no longer have any respect for yours? Violence has an interesting way of changing definition. When it’s used against us, you call it justice. When we utilise it, you call us criminals. There is no such thing as reverse racism. There is only a response to racism. This is not racist violence, this is violence born from rage of oppression, and it will happen again and again until you stop seeing us as the problem and you as the solution.’

‘Elyas,’ said John, looking up from his screen. ‘Jia… Apparently she’s trapped next door to the travel agency.’

‘What? How? Surely the restaurant was evacuated after the police warning?’

‘I don’t know, mate. I’m really sorry. It’s all over the net,’ said John. ‘She’s developed quite a following over the last few days, become a bit of a local hero. The online chatter is using the hashtag #TheVerdict to describe her and her cousins. Sounds like people on the ground there have been waiting for her to come out, but there’s been no sign.’

Elyas was already on the phone, dialling her number, but the call failed. He tried again as he started pulling on his coat.

‘Where are you going?’ John asked.

‘I have to get out there, I can’t stay here,’ said Elyas.

‘Elyas, mate, you don’t want to get mixed up in this. She runs her father’s operations, you must have known that?’ But the door had slammed before he had finished speaking.