‘Max…’ Jeremy sat down heavily in a chair. His shoulders slumped forward and he looked at his hands. ‘Fourteen, OK, thirteen years I’ve been here. And I was editor of the Sentinel before I came. Twenty-five years I’ve been a journalist. Then you take one week off – one week – and you’re back with kids who’ve just left uni.’ He shook his head again.

Max, a little worried about him now, lowered his voice. ‘It’s not like your pay’s getting cut though. Less work, same money. That’s not a bad deal, is it?’

Jeremy raised a hand and wearily pushed that consolation away. ‘That just means in a year’s time they’ll notice I’m getting paid too much and give me the boot.’

‘Listen,’ said Max. ‘This’ll only be temporary. I’ll talk to the chief. I can just tell him the truth – that it’s a waste not having you in charge of one of the pods. Lauren’ll probably only be on till he writes the next rota, then she’ll just fill in when someone’s away.’

At that, a sound of rage escaped from Jeremy, but it was the sound of rage escaping. He shook his head again in surrender. ‘Fuck me,’ he said.

And Max, who, although not fond of banter did like a well-turned one-liner, said, ‘No thanks, Jez. Not pretty enough,’ and patted him on the cheek.

At that, Jeremy half-laughed and then sighed. He could see that his surface self wanted to be angry, but what would it bring him? More than a decade of something indistinguishable from loyalty had brought him only demotion.

While Jeremy logged in to his computer, Max tried to further buoy up his mood. But Jeremy was only half-listening. His thoughts had been cut loose of the present and drifted away and out on to the enormous past. Across his mind’s eye flickered an image of his youthful hands gripping handlebars as he cycled through a night sky thick with gently drifting snow. He’d been a cub reporter on his way to cover he couldn’t remember what; probably some council meeting in one of Margate’s satellite towns. His hands had been stiff and pleasantly sore, his breath had come hot from inside his layers of coat and he himself had been ardent in his eagerness to bring back the news. He remembered the glamour he’d associated with it then.

His thoughts kept being interrupted by subs touching their hand to his shoulder or hailing him from across the desk as they passed: ‘Alright, Jezzer; decided to come back, did you?’ or ‘Escape attempt unsuccessful, was it, Jez?’ And there were still a few old-school enough to call him, and everyone else who was on the inside, ‘darling’. The camaraderie made it bearable, as it always did.