Abbotsfield
What it is
A village in a Derbyshire valley, with tunnels in the hillside and a church that holds a memorial service at noon. It is the book’s opening image and its last: C00 gives the massacre — five men in mismatched military gear, a jeep, two minutes of shooting, and then the trucks and helicopters and cameras that arrive to explain it.
Twelve dead (C01). The Service treats it as the first item on a list, which is exactly what it is: The Watering Hole Paper’s first stage, staged to look like jihadist terrorism and used to justify everything that follows. The second attack — the church, C13 — is the cell’s attempt to finish the list where the cameras are.
Book 5 — London Rules
- C00 — The massacre: the old man, the two women, the boy running for the tunnels; two minutes, then the jeep leaves.
- C01 — Twelve dead, claimed by Islamic State, and the reason the Service is under attack in Parliament.
- C02 — Its memorial service is the occasion everyone assumes the next attack will target.
- C12 — Taverner and Flyte settle on the Abbey service; the cell has already chosen the village’s own.
- C13 — The village service, with news crews present, begins at noon; Shirley Dander and JK Coe are already there.
- C14 — The van past the village sign, the officer knocked into a wall, the guns, and Shirley in the aisle turning the key in the door.
Related
Derbyshire · The Watering Hole Paper · Slough · London Rules