Jeremy groaned inwardly at the thought of having to do the last half-hour’s work again. He said, ‘I don’t have to make a new file, do I? I can just copy and paste the new text into this document.’

‘Fine. I’ll get the Art desk to switch the pictures.’

He bustled away. Jeremy, sighing, hit Ctrl+A to select all the copy, then pressed Delete.

7

At ten past four, the strained voice of the Editor’s PA spoke with audible politeness on the address system. As every day, she’d already come on at four to say ‘News conference please.’ But the middle and back benches and the heads of Newsdesk and Pictures had failed to show any sign of having heard. So the Editor made her, as every day, come on again to say, ‘News conference now please, everyone.’

Still no one moved, until the chief finished the story he was on, hit the return key and, in one movement, spun sideways and up out of his chair. His pod leaders rose as one, Max still typing while he stood up. With thumb and forefinger, he flicked Ctrl+S, then checked it had saved. He glanced at Jez, with whom he usually walked to conference. Jeremy shook his head unhappily: he didn’t even want to go; this bomb bullshit was going to go all the way to the Editor and he wanted as little part of it as possible. As Max left, Jeremy saw him fall in next to Lauren. Everything was going to shit at once.

The back bench supposed they’d better go too and got to their feet. Seeing all this commotion, Geraldine, the head of Newsdesk, said to her deputy, ‘Off we pop then,’ and the whole crowd shambled, talking, past the Fleet Street sign and down the corridor to the Editor’s office.

The newsroom relaxed. Several people stopped pretending to work. One of the casuals, pale with hangover, put on his coat and went out to buy a McDonald’s. The remaining subs stood up or stretched their arms above their heads. Rosie crouched forward to lift a phone from the handbag beneath her desk. It looked big in her hands. Will swivelled his monitor to show her the Dirty Doctor story Max had assigned him.

‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘This guy persuaded eight hundred women that they needed to be examined naked, and took pictures with a camera he’d hidden in the light fitting.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Rosie. ‘That’s awful. What a horrible man.’

Will had thought it was quite funny. ‘But how can people be so stupid? You go to the doctor with a sore throat and he tells you to take off your pants…’

Rosie shuddered. ‘Ugh. But you trust them, though, don’t you, doctors? That’s what’s horrible.’

‘I wouldn’t trust one who looked like this. Look at the picture. You can see that he’s a pervert.’