Pauline pulled a face. “What kept you, Lindsay? We’ve already had half a dozen hacks in here chasing him. I told them it was confidential information. A guy who manages to say up front what so many people are thinking deserves a bit of protection, don’t you think?”

Lindsay shrugged. “You know I’m not after the same thing as them.”

Pauline cocked one eyebrow. “Do I?”

“It’s been a very long time since I stopped being a cardcarrying bloodsucker,” Lindsay was reproachful. “As you well know.”

Pauline checked the copies rolling off the machine. “Wait there,” she said, walking away and opening a cardboard filing box. She fished out a dog-eared bundle of paper stapled together and quickly flicked through it. She shoved the list back in the box and came back to the duplicator. “Maclintock Tower. 1005. Just round the corner from you. Satisfied?”

“Fascinated. I owe you one,” Lindsay said. As she walked back across the office, she heard Brian say, “Thank you, George. You’ve coped magnificently, as usual. Four hundred and fifty copies, please, by four o’clock. Thanks again, team.”

Sophie followed Lindsay out into the corridor. “Got what you need?” she asked.

“More than I expected, actually. Our man also has a room on the tenth floor.” Before she could say more, Brian Robinson emerged behind them.

He touched Lindsay lightly on the shoulder. “Word to the wise, my dear.”

“I believe I owe you a vote of thanks, Brian. My brief says you did me sterling service this morning,” Lindsay said.

“The least I could do, my dear. Let me tell you, you deserve some decent service from this God-forsaken union after all the work you and your colleagues did in the eighties.” He turned to Sophie. “Your lady and her cohorts deserve the undying gratitude of all the old queens like me for the work they did in forcing some of those dreadful tabloid hacks to acknowledge the existence of our Ethics Code. Not to mention that marvellous pamphlet you produced on reporting AIDS. My dear, young Lindsay here got up at conference and positively lambasted them for their narrow-minded anti-gay hysteria. And of course, when AIDS turned out not to be the gay plague visited by God on the sons of Sodom, they all had to eat their words and go right back to the guidelines that Lindsay and her intrepid team on the Equality Committee had drawn up in the first place.”

“Yet another thing you never told me,” Sophie said drily.

“One has to keep the mystery alive, dear lady,” Brain said. “But enough of that. I couldn’t help overhearing what you were asking Pauline. I take it you wanted to talk to Jed about his little tantrum in the hall?” Lindsay nodded. “I thought so. Might one ask why?”