“Not exactly. Not really,” Max replied in a mild way. “He has a starred First from Balliol. Devious, on the other hand—well, he’s extremely determined, so there you could be right.”

“Fine. And his Oxford degree was in fashion, was it?”

“Come on, Lindsay. This is boring. Classics.”

“Okay. I’m impressed. He can read Latin and Greek in the original. The fact remains, he knows less about fashion than my cat. So who’s running the fashion department, Max? Me, or some Oxford pedant with a power complex?”

“Wrong on three counts.” Max gave her a smug look. “You shouldn’t associate him just with Oxford. He’s half Irish, a farmer’s son. He isn’t a pedant, he’s fun. He’s a very experienced and much-sought-after journalist whom I brought onto this paper to clean up the features department. Which he’s done, in under two months. And he doesn’t have a power complex. He just likes getting things done his way. As do you, of course.”

“Oh my God. I’m beginning to understand. How old is he?”

“Thirty-fiveish.”

“Your age, more or less. You’re contemporaries, in other words. Did you know him at Oxford, Max?”

“Yes,” Max said, still mildly. “I did, actually. We shared digs our second year. We shared a motorbike. We admired the same woman, only Rowland cut me out. We—”

“Give me strength.” Lindsay finished her whiskey in one gulp. She could see how much Max was enjoying this. She stood up.

“Right. I won’t mention old boy networks, Max…”

“Far too cheap.”

“I won’t even mention male bonding. I get the message.”

“I didn’t like those Markov pictures either. Or the model. She looked half-starved. I don’t like these waifs.”

“I was overruled, and I stay overruled, right? That devious bastard’s lobbied you. I’ve been screwed.”

“Just in these two instances. Let’s say I listened to McGuire’s arguments. He thinks we could improve our fashion coverage if we took a stronger, more journalistic stance. Lindsay, he’s very bright, you know. He’s also bloody good. His views prevailed. Next time…”

“Next time his views prevail, Max, I resign. It’s the collections this month. I won’t have McGuire interfering. I won’t work like this.”

Max beamed at this threat. “Nonsense,” he replied. “You’d never resign. You love this job. You love this newspaper. You love me—I’m a good friend, and an exceptionally good editor…”

“You were once.”

“And you’ll love Rowland McGuire, given time. Ask around, Lindsay. Everyone loves him. Except the people he’s fired, of course.”

Not me, Lindsay thought now as McGuire returned to his desk. Had she disliked him and distrusted him less, she might have been prepared to admit that Pixie’s description of him was apt. McGuire had the kind of looks that stopped traffic—and Lindsay had to admit that whatever other faults he had, vanity was not one of them; McGuire seemed genuinely unaware of his good looks. He certainly did nothing to enhance them. He had a lean, muscular build that even the aged and crumpled tweed suits he tended to wear could not entirely disguise. He had wild black hair, worn slightly long, and badly cut. He had green eyes, an amused, lazy, and faintly mocking expression: he was rumored to have the temper of a fiend, but Lindsay had never witnessed this.