She flashed up a map of Leeds city centre with a park outlined in red.

‘This is the target. Muslims in the Park. It’s a council sponsored, so-called community cohesion event at Roundhay with talks, food stalls and prayers. One of the guests is Ishmail Sherif and he’s on at 3pm. The shadow home secretary’s speaking too. It’s a relatively small event – no more than one thousand people and mostly under canvas.

‘We’re confident this is the target. The browser history on Houghton’s phone shows he’s searched for this event a dozen times over the last few weeks. And we believe they are planning something within hours.

‘We know it involves a vehicle – discussion of the suitability of a vehicle comes up several times. And there’s also clearly something important about the type of vehicle and its driver. The texts talk about bringing the driver to the house and swapping there.

‘So far we’ve been dealing with fact. Now I’m having to enter the realms of speculation. From the context of the texts, the vehicle is crucial to this operation. I think it’s likely that Houghton is planning a car bomb.’

‘Why not a vehicle ramming?’ The voice came from the back.

‘Possible, but less likely. There are no significant crowds in a place with vehicular access at this event. It’s not like a Christmas market or busy city centre. And any vehicle could do that. This needs to be a particular vehicle with a replacement driver.

‘We’re not proposing to cancel – it’s far too late. We have a thousand people expected and they will be more exposed milling around the streets. West Yorkshire Police have a massive operation underway to protect the venue – that obviously needs to step up a notch now. As an additional precaution, we’re not letting vehicles within five hundred metres of the venue.

‘That’s the target. DI Skeffington will now brief you on what we need today.’

#

Gabriel had moved to the ops room. Around her, the seats were filling up and the screens flickering into life.

She’d briefed Tennant on the phone and spoken at length to the Gold Command at Leeds policing the Muslims in the Park event. Now she had to wait as the teams around her did their work. ‘Ma’am.’ Campbell came over, sweaty and urgent. ‘We’ve got the triangulation report for Houghton’s associate in Leeds. It’s taken a while to process the data, but we’ve got an address. It’s a terraced house on an estate in Armley. The target has been in and out of the house dozens of times. It’s almost certainly where they’re based – maybe an NRF safe house.’

‘Fantastic,’ said Gabriel. ‘Get me North East on the line. Now.’

#

Armley, Leeds

The Stevenson Estate had been dubbed the ‘ghost estate’ by the local media. The two hundred low-rise flats had been earmarked by the council for demolition, but the developers supposed to be turning these red-brick modern-day slums into designer flats had gone bust and the plans to usher in young media types and internet entrepreneurs were on hold. For the moment, this corner of Armley was in limbo. Most residents had moved out, leaving behind rows of boarded-up houses and rubbish-strewn gardens. Just a dozen residents remained, mostly elderly, mostly poor and mostly complaining bitterly to the council and local paper that they had been abandoned.