When alone, muttering over her lists and notes, she feels like a Raymond Chandler character, searching for clues within clues. (In her wilder moments, she’s thought about purchasing an antique pipe.) Harri had not realised that the Panache woman had become boring to her. But the new Girl was a thrilling blank space. Was she pretty? Was she punk? Was she a pirate priestess with a power brow who always ate vegan, except on weekends? Did she read Co-Star or Astrology Zone? Was she living with her parents and saving up a tiny deposit for her first tiny house? Was she planning to sack it all off and run away to Berlin? Did she collect vinyl, but own no record player? Had she just heard the Beatles for the very first time on Spotify? Which vibrator did she use? Harri visited so many corners of the internet that she diagnosed herself with carpal Tumblr syndrome.

Harri knew that she needed to set a Girl to catch a Girl—that her writers needed to be her readers. Most magazines usually operate on a sort of washing cycle, with a posse of Posys-from-Vogue rotating their way through the glossies, becoming junior, then senior, depending on how long they were able to finance indefinite, unpaid stints in the fashion cupboard. The Know needed to be, as much as possible, a Posy free zone. She needed tone. She needed writers who could be funny, raw and honest. The trouble was that the potential pool of new hires was flooded with Posys. Looking for writers who could afford to live within commuting distance of Central London limited things a little—but not as much as her budget. ‘Will, am I missing a zero? Rosa used to spend more than this on taxis,’ she’d complained.

Will shook his head at her. ‘We’re cost-cutting. And you can hire kids for next to nothing these days, they’re just glad of the opportunity. It’s market rate.’

Harri thought of Will’s three children, all at private day schools, and wondered how the fees compared with these proposed annual salaries. Then she walked away, wordlessly, because she could not trust herself not to hurl a stapler at his head.

The team that Harri has assembled is scrappy, and tiny, and still a bit too posh for her liking. They have been allocated the worst corner of the building, and Hudson’s marketing department seems to think that The Know will get all the exposure it needs if Harri just keeps tweeting about it. Still, Harri is excited. Giddy, even. And now, it’s the night before her big day, and she’s setting her alarm, and turning off her bedside light, and trying to slow her breathing and wondering whether this is going to mark the end of her career, or the beginning…

Chapter Nine

Left out of office

Imogen