Terribly little of that pride seemed to remain since he’d slackened back to working merely full time. Now he wondered whether, in reducing the strain, he’d undone himself, like an overstretched rubber band gone loose and floppy. No wonder he’d been demoted. And he’d be getting a bollocking from Newsdesk when they discovered there was nothing to this bomb business. He really had spent longer here than was good for him; seeing bombs under every burqa must mean he was getting as institutionalized as the chief.

He tried again to concentrate on the story. The picture was good. Pretty, hair up in her hat, intelligent-looking, maybe a bit of a goody-two-shoes but not too smug to be likeable. And the resolution was high. Much better than in the old days, before Facebook, when all these mug shots had been lifted from school photos. Then it had just been one small head among many, with a light circle around it.

Max said, ‘Looking at that page, that’s quite a solid wodge of text. Do you have a line in there that could be a pull-quote?’

‘Eerrrm. Yes. The mum says, “I look at her clothes and it hurts more than I ever thought possible.” I can crunch that down.’

‘Yep, that’ll do it.’

‘That’s the nice thing about the posh ones, isn’t it? They’re a bit more articulate.’

Max nodded. They’d missed each other and wanted to chat. ‘Yeah, it means you don’t have to spoil the copy with clichés – “she was an angel”.’

Jeremy laughed, to his own surprise. ‘“She was the light of our lives.”’

‘Hardly worth getting quotes at all.’

‘You could give them a list of phrases to avoid.’

‘While you’re on the doorstep? You are a hard-nosed old hack, aren’t you, Underwood? Anyway, they’d just start giving you synonyms. “Oh, she was a cherub; she was the lamp of our existence.” Do you fancy a tea?’

‘That’d be great.’

Max stood up and touched his hand to the pocket where he kept his staff card. ‘Assam, semi-skimmed? Or did you pick up some new habits in Ireland? Builder’s, whole milk, six sugars?’

‘Normal’s fine, thanks.’ Jeremy leant back in his chair and brought his hands together on his paunch, the demotion and the Newsdesk temporarily unimportant. ‘I know it sounds stupid, but everything is so Irish over there, though. I thought – you remember – that it would all be pretty much the same, except you’d pay in Euros.’

‘But what, they all wear leprechaun hats and say “begorra” at the end of sentences?’