‘All right, Campbell. As I see it, in addition to the familial DNA search, we have two other strands. We continue the CCTV search – the Tube, railways, streets. The hotel CCTV gives us one of the men. Not great, but better than nothing. He’s short, around five foot seven inches, sturdily built, and white, obviously. His face is obscured throughout.’ The image from the hotel reception came on the screen.

‘I need the video unit working on this. We need a match with driving licence and passport records. The other man stayed in the shadows. Male, around six foot, and wearing a green hoodie, but no visuals.

‘Two, go back through the video records of every far-right demo and march over the last ten years, this time looking for anyone resembling these two men. Clear?’

The meeting ended. What next, thought Gabriel as the team dispersed. First Fletcher, now these two men. Then who knows what? It was like a hydra. Each time they cut off a head, another two grew in its place.

Bose was waiting outside the conference room with a clutch of papers.

‘Ma’am, quick word.’ Her eyes showed concern. ‘We’ve had an interesting report from Sussex Special Branch on a lorry full of illegal immigrants.’

‘Can’t it wait, Eva?’

‘Not really, ma’am. The DS from Sussex thinks one of the immigrants is a match for Abu Mujahid.’

#

Cabinet Office, Whitehall, London

The Home Secretary smacked his palm on the table, sending his pencil rolling to the floor. His aide leaned across and returned the pencil. The Home Secretary glowered at her, before turning to Tennant and the head of MI5.

‘Tell me this,’ Thomas said with slow emphasis, his voice becoming more Geordie with each word. ‘The press are ripping us apart and I don’t blame them. Not only does the combined might of SO15 and MI5 fail to stop two armed terrorists checking into a hotel and throwing petrol bombs and opening fire on passers-by, they walk straight out of the hotel, past God knows how many armed police, and vanish. Either of you – please, feel free to fill us all in.’

Tennant breathed in deeply through his nose and ran his tongue inside of his top molars. This was supposed to be a security briefing, not a telling-off from the head boy. Don’t get annoyed, he thought, stay calm. When he was new to the police, he’d once been told by a wise chief inspector: ‘Steve, always respect the office, even when it’s occupied by a dickhead.’ The words were in his ears now.

He drew another slow breath.

‘It’s correct that both these men were unknown to us and to the security service, Home Secretary,’ said Tennant. ‘As we’ve discussed before, intel on the NRF is not as good as it could be.’

‘That’s a bloody understatement,’ muttered Thomas.

COBRA had gone badly up to that point. Tennant had given an update on the manhunt for the two gunmen. He had tried his hardest to react positively to JTAC’s decision, announced with unnecessary fanfare at the opening, Tennant thought, to raise the threat level to critical. A junior defence minister had muttered ‘A day bloody late’ under her breath and Tennant had privately agreed. Tennant had been equally annoyed when the head of JTAC said there was no hard evidence of a third attack, ‘just a presumption which we are not one hundred per cent confident in’.