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I came back a few seconds later with my file in my hands. As I didn't own a computer or a mobile phone, I filed the old-fashioned way, writing everything down on cards designed for my index.

I flicked through the sheets until I found the record I wanted. "Ah, here we are," I said. "Ahmed Dastageer, a British Muslim of Pakistani descent. Born in Birmingham. He fled to Pakistan after a fatal knifing of his uncle. Apparently he was quizzed by police in association with that offence but was discharged and permitted to leave the country. He lived in a part of Pakistan where his ancestral relations lived, and married a daughter, or a niece of the creator and mystical leader of the Fist of Allah, an extremist group who have crafted their style by blasting passenger trains in India and Kashmir."

"How nice of them," Sandra said.

"Yes," I said. "Ahmed deceptively revisited England and was allegedly grilled and discharged again this time in association with the tube-and-bu