‘You eat at your desk again?’ Zara said, reaching out to flick the seeds away and looking fondly at her mentor.

‘If I didn’t, I wouldn’t get to eat.’ Then he held his hand up, before stroking his large stomach. ‘No comments on that last statement, thank you.’

Zara grinned. She knew Lachy well enough from their six years of working together to know he didn’t care that his shirt buttons were straining against the pulling fabric and no amount of chiding about his unhealthy habits would change him.

‘So, any other news?’ Lachy asked again.

‘Not yet. I’ve planted a few seeds.’

‘Who with?’

‘Sophie, Colin Grawd’s daughter. I think she wants to talk, but I couldn’t get anything out of her today.’

‘What makes you think she’ll talk to you?’ Lachy quizzed.

She shrugged, knowing he wanted to hear her thought process—that was how he got the best out of his staff. Getting them to talk through their ideas, testing them for any holes or to see if something could be done better. It was Lachy’s way of guiding the younger journos, mentoring them. He figured his job as the editor was to create good journalists, ones who researched well, reported facts and wrote tight, interesting articles. He’d used the same method ever since she’d turned up at his office for an interview, straight out of university.

‘We’re similar ages and, like I said, I think she’s wanting to talk to someone.’

‘I thought she was a lot younger than you.’

‘Yeah, maybe she’s twenty or so. We’re in the same decade! But her dad has just died in a terrible accident and I can relate to that. We have something in common.’

‘It would be a great story.’

‘Of course it would. You’ve taught me well, you know!’

Lachy laughed and smoothed his tie down over his stomach. ‘I’d like to think so.’ He paused. ‘You’ll have to make it fairly quick, though. It’ll be old news before long.’

Zara nodded. ‘I’ll give it a couple of days, then see if I can get in contact with her.’

‘Right, I’ll leave it with you. You don’t need an old man like me looking over your shoulder.’

She threw him another fond look and headed to her desk. The open-plan office was filled with noise—phones ringing, keyboards clacking. There were three journalists conducting phone interviews, their fingers flying across the keyboards as they paused to ask questions then typed the answers. The other five journalists must be out in the field.

She looked around to see if Liz, her closest friend, was around. Zara spotted her deeply engrossed in a phone conversation. Her pretty, round face was serious, and her pen scribbled quickly across her notebook. Liz was the only one who wrote longhand then transposed her stories onto the computer. When Zara had teased her about being a dinosaur at the age of twenty-five, Liz had laughed and said she didn’t care. ‘I get a better feel for the story if I hand-write things first. And I like the connection of the hand to pen to page. You should try it.’