George had given her an outline of why he wanted to speak to her, as well as his home and work addresses and some concerns he had about the impact his research might have. It could be an interesting piece, but without George, it was dead in the water before she even got her pen out. It might well be a merry dance, but when she’d spoken to him, he hadn’t sounded deceitful in the slightest. He’d come across as genuine, ethical and a little bit scared. To Tilly, investigative journalism at its best revealed some kind of cover-up by the big boys, and an effort to silence the minions. George Murphy believed that he’d been, if not threatened, at least nudged to stop what he was doing.

The other thing that endeared him to her was that when she’d asked him how he’d found her, he’d replied that he liked one of her articles on Irish abortion legislation. It had touched her. She’d written three articles on the subject and each one had been published online only. When she asked George how he’d come across them, he’d said that he had once been involved in research into the morning-after pill, and it was a subject that he followed closely. The guy knew his stuff. It made sense when she later found out that he worked for Ravensword.

She walked back to her flat, smoking a cigarette. The nicotine entered her bloodstream and she calmed a little. It was a filthy habit and she wished she could stop, but every time she tried, her craving for the tobacco hit took over and she caved. She sucked hard to finish the damn thing before she reached her flat. She rarely smoked indoors, as per her tenancy agreement, but her bedroom had a tiny balcony for just that purpose, and she used an old catering-size tomato tin as her ashtray. It must have contained hundreds, if not thousands of butts.

The thought of what she’d put into her lungs was quickly dismissed as she went out onto the balcony and lit another. She sat on the single metal chair and looked at her notes. The sun was high in the sky and the summer promised to be a belter. The noise of the streets below, ever present in her life, buzzed and beeped. She was used to the racket. She’d chosen a second-floor flat to at least be a little farther away from the traffic, but the fumes and dust from the road still drifted upwards, and some days it was too much to have a window open. Today, though, was fairly pleasant.