‘Also…’ The chief leant yet closer, his tie almost making contact with his plate. ‘You hate it here. You’ve hated it for years. You’ve gone too soft for it. You don’t enjoy it any more. You haven’t even really enjoyed everything that’s happened in the past couple of days. For me it’s different. I don’t want to stay and watch the old girl get put down. Might get jealous.’

The chief had run slightly astray of his point and they both looked at their plates. Jeremy said, ‘The job does sound good.’

‘Good? What more do you want? And your boss’ll be your old pal Frank, who’ll let you get away with murder in memory of many happy years on the Beast.’

There was another pause, in which only Jeremy looked at his plate. The chief asked, ‘Well, should I tell them you want it?’

Reluctance to answer anything at all drew Jeremy’s words out slowly. ‘I don’t know, Frank.’

‘What don’t you know?’

Jeremy was so tired; and this all just seemed like so much hassle. He would probably be just as tired somewhere else. Things were more or less the same everywhere, weren’t they? Even if what was happening in front of your eyes shifted and changed, it was all still just sound and light, a projection of fuzzy images like that on to the back wall of the newsroom. And behind the pictures there was only the cold wall, concrete and immutable.

‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘This story, you know, I don’t like to say it, Frank, but I’m a pretty big wheel in it, aren’t I? I might finally get promoted.’

The chief was flabbergasted. He went to speak but no words came and he soundlessly shut his mouth again, like a great greedy fish. Then he asked, ‘What the fuck?’

Jeremy shrugged helplessly. All he wanted was for the chief not to be talking to him.

‘Promoted to what? You think they’ll give you chief sub ahead of Max?’

‘No, no, of course not.’

‘And you can tell your greasy little pal from me that I don’t care what he does after I’m gone but he can keep in his place while I’m still here.’

Jeremy looked at his plate, where a last baked bean was sliding across the greased ceramic.

The chief was still incredulous. ‘You don’t think you’re going to get promoted. A raise, at most, maybe. You’re just going to sit here and let them shit on you until the whole thing goes under.’

Jeremy stabbed at the bean, which crumbled under a prong. ‘I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so?’

‘Listen, Frank, thanks, really. I appreciate it. But I’ve got to go call my wife; I couldn’t get hold of her last night.’