Mirza would be making a joke right now if he was here. He’d be making faces at the toddler. He’d be cheering Asad up. But he wasn’t here. He was wrapped in plastic in a cupboard in a flat. The blood around his slashed throat would have dried by now – it would be crusty and blackened, like the gunk in your nose after a nosebleed.

What if that toddler was there in the crowd later? What if she was a Muslim? Could he do it then? He tried to picture the girl’s body on the concrete, her eyes open and her face dusted with ash. He tried to imagine the crowds screaming around her, her mother crying out. He couldn’t. Instead of the girl’s face, he could only see Mirza. Instead of the crowds, he could only hear the gurgling of blood as the knife slit Mirza’s throat.

He thought of his father, always so severe and critical. What would he be feeling tonight when he heard what Asad had done? Pity or anger? His father had never understood the passion that Asad felt. He was a small man in every way, happy in a little world in Cardiff, content with his lot. And his mother? What would she be feeling tonight? Would she understand why her son had to do this – to make the world safer for her, better for them?

He thought of Abu Mujahid’s words that morning.

‘We are part of a small noble group of true Muslims who will sacrifice our lives in order to raise the banner and establish the Deen. We will not reach glory except by traversing the path of this blessed jihad. Allah will raise us and make us victorious. You will be bestowed with great honour in Paradise with your beautiful maidens. Soon you will be in the highest part of Paradise with the Prophets, the truthful and the martyrs.’

The memory strengthened Asad’s resolve. These anxieties, these worries about his family, and the child in the cafe, they were sent to test him. And he would not fail. How many toddlers had died in Western attacks in Iraq? How many children had died of starvation or thirst or illness because Western governments and citizens let them die? This was war. And with war came difficult decisions and sacrifices. And this was no sacrifice for him. He was following Allah’s command and soon he would be in Paradise.

Abu Mujahid had told him exactly where to wait and when to open fire on that first evening in the Lake District, sat around the table in the cottage with the chintz curtains. His words came back to Asad now.

‘Make each bullet count, brothers. Once you start, they will try to run back. But they won’t be able to fight back against the tide of people behind them. Some will fall, some will be trampled, some will put others in the way of your bullets. But their deaths are justified. This is a just war and you are a soldier at the gates of Paradise.’