“Can’t think why.” She gave him an appraising look: too appraising, really. He wasn’t sure whether this was down to her being a journalist, or just being so bloody young. She said, “But no, I work for an actual newspaper.”

She named it. It was indeed big, in the sense of being a household name.

“And what’s your interest in Benny?” he said.

“He has a story.”

John said, “Yes, well. Everyone’s got one of those.”

“But Benny’s is big.”

“So why haven’t you published it?”

“There are details to be ironed out.”

“Such as?”

“Well, Benny wants more money than my editor wants to give him. And my editor wants proof that it’s actually true.”

“Inconvenient things like that. What’s the story?”

Daisy said, “Ah, you nearly had me there. I nearly gave it away.”

“I thought when you people were working on a story with a witness like our Benny, you locked yourselves away in a motel or something. Lived on takeaways. Made sure nobody could poach your talent.”

“I saw that film once. It was quite old, wasn’t it?”

“Nobody’s got the budget any more, have they?”

“Maybe sometimes. For a big enough story.”

“And this isn’t?”

“It is if it’s true. But Benny has form. He approached us once before.”

“‘Us?’”

“The paper. Not me. It was before my time.”

“And what was Benny selling then?”

“He didn’t get around to saying. He had a story, he said. It involved spooks. That would be you lot.”

John bowed his acknowledgement. Spooks would be his lot. Or that’s what it might look to an outsider, anyway. As far as spooks were concerned, he was just a milkman. “So the story never got printed.”

“The story never got printed.”

And that would have been about how the Service recruited Benny for a black-books op, he thought. He must have worried he’d be left out in the cold, which was something that happened to spies, and sought an alternative form of payment just in case. Or else to encourage the Park to dig deeper. He didn’t lack confidence, Benny Manors, that was for sure. A more circumspect character might have wondered how the Park would react to the squeeze being applied. But it had worked out for him in the end. And now here he was again, with another story to sell, only this time he seemed to really want to do it.

He said, “And now he’s back.”

“I was an intern at the time, but I was shadowing the journalist on the story. Dave Bateman?” She waited, but John offered no response. “Anyway, he’s one of the best in the business, Dave. And he thought there was something there.”

“Even though it never arrived.”

“So when Benny turned up again, claiming he had another story, I thought, I want a piece of that.”

“And Dave wasn’t interested?”

“He’s moved on.”

Whether this was to a different paper or a different way of life entirely wasn’t clear. John decided it didn’t matter.