Its pages seemed to him the product of a mind that was morbidly drawn to decay and corruption, and that displayed the filthy-fingered rectitude of one who needs to examine so that he can judge. Paedos, molesters, murderers, thieves and cheats, its mental landscape was a teeming darkness made only more hideous by the pure white light of Tragic Schoolgirls, Tragic Babies, Tragic Soldiers, Tragic Anything.

Every page was tainted. But, he realized with horror, it was in the Beast’s own voice that he was condemning it. The idiom of contamination – he was contaminated. It was like tar that stuck and sucked as you tried to rise out of it. And he couldn’t. But in despair he thought that if he had to live in filth he would plunge himself into it. He would swim in it. He would revel in it and eventually he would be its king. If they wanted hammering headlines, they would have them. Striking down hard on the keys, he wrote it one sweep:

‘DR FILTH’ TOOK

VILE PICS OF

SICK CHILDREN

And there below the headline was the newly dubbed Dr Filth’s wispily bearded face, which Will captioned ‘SHAMED: Dr Steven Franks’ of Eagleton Road Practice, Norwich. Name him, shame him, ruin him, bankrupt him, have his neighbours smear shit on his door, his colleagues strike him off, his wife disown him, his children get beaten up at school. Have the public call for prison. Have the jury convict him, have the judge send him down, down into the blind pit where he belonged.

Slowly, Will’s despair broke up and dispersed, like a mob after violence. With it went its attendant fantasies, leaving him still there, in the newsroom. He felt empty, as if after a bout of tears.

Glancing across at Rosie, he saw she was engrossed in what she was doing. After trying in vain to catch her eye, he desultorily remembered that there’d been something he intended to look up in the style guide, but not what it was. He clicked haphazardly through the alphabetical folders with their tens of thousands of entries, like ‘Kings Road, Chelsea, NOT King’s Road’ or ‘The Yemen, NOT Yemen’ or undeleted assertions that the currency of France was the Franc and that of Italy the Lira.

There was a comprehensive section on correct forms of address for the aristocracy. ‘If there are two peers of the same name but different rank, as in Viscount Pill and Lord Pill of Piltdown, the first should be given his formal style to avoid confusion. Eldest sons of dukes, marquesses and earls use the courtesy title – i.e. Lord Pillock (usually one of their father’s lesser titles).’