Max couldn’t resist the flattery, and preened.

‘Which is why it won’t matter that Newsdesk want to borrow Jez again. Apparently they’ve found their cat o’ nine tails.’

Jez sighed with frustration.

‘And last thing: that “Dr Filth” headline – who wrote it?’

Max said, ‘I’ve already changed it.’

‘I know, but the Editor wants it changed back. He likes it.’

Max tried to think of a response, but the Editor’s express wishes overruled any objection. ‘OK,’ he said.

‘So whose was it?’

‘Will’s.’ Max glared at him, and Will tried – not quite successfully – to keep his face straight.

The chief said, ‘Keep it up, kid, and you’ll get a life sentence like mine. Now, Jez, get over there.’

10

When Jeremy returned to Newsdesk, lugubrious with anticipation, he found that something had driven the reporters into a state of frenetic excitement. They ignored him, which only made him more apprehensive. Geraldine herself was away updating the Editor and Jeremy, summoned to where he was unwanted, tried to fake his way out of how he was feeling by lolling ostentatiously in a vacant chair. He could hear one of the assistant news editors berating a reporter: ‘…can’t be breaking and entering if the window’s already broken; just fucking get in there and we’ll sort it out later.’

Ben noticed Jeremy and, clamping his chubby hand over the bottom of the phone he was holding, asked, ‘Are you hearing this?’

Jeremy tried to protest that of course he wasn’t hearing anything, but the reporter shushed him angrily and pointed at the phone. Jeremy bit off the words and instead tapped his fingers on the table. He wished he and Max were outside having a cigarette. He’d missed that on holiday, as well as the familiarity of how their conversations usually went the same way: he moaned about the place while Max criticized people he thought shouldn’t be there. Now that the idea of a cigarette had occurred to Jeremy he felt a physical irritation, like hunger in the skin.

A fugitive thrill ran through him: why didn’t he just go outside and have a smoke? Who would stop him?

But he knew, of course, that he would stop himself.

Ben was jabbing his finger at a sheaf of paper on the desk beside Jeremy’s elbow. Jeremy picked it up for him, the lowermost sheet swinging from its staple. The reporter frowned, put his hand over the phone again and hissed, ‘Read it.’

Jeremy read. It was the transcript of a doorstep interview with Kayani’s elder brother. The text had been hastily transcribed and was ragged with errors. But there were quotes beside which someone had scrawled big asterisks in red biro: