‘So Calvin and the idiot are in complete meltdown next door. Even the kiss-and-tell girl is looking a bit jumpy. But then Cal jumps on the hotel phone, and gets reception to put him through to the room next door. The footballer’s phone rings and “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Calvin says, in his most upmarket tones. “There seems to be a very minor glitch with our automated babysitting service right across the hotel. Slightly bizarrely you may be able to see yourself on your television at this time! But don’t worry, sir! We’ll be right back to normal soon.” ’

‘Honestly.’ Casey started to laugh.

‘So the footballer looks a bit baffled, and then carries on as before.’

‘Grim.’ Casey grimaced, scrubbing at her face.

‘You probably don’t want to spend days and days with him.’

‘No. Could Hippy help us out?’

Rhys Hipkiss had been their opposite number on the Sunday Enquiry until quite recently. He had left the paper, abruptly, a few months ago. The Enquiry was one of the racier tabloids, skating raucously over legal niceties. Hipkiss also specialised in kiss-and-tell girls. A world where I’ll go to the Enquiry unless you give me a hundred grand would land you in jail. But They’re offering me a hundred grand. I don’t want to take it, but . . . was quite different.

That careful ellipsis would land the cheque. But the tabloids would be there, manoeuvring, all along. You’ll get all the deals, we’ll make you a star . . . ‘Hippy? Didn’t you hear about what he got up to?’ Miranda started to laugh. ‘He got axed over Amners. You must have been away.’

‘What happened?’

Amners, a big accountancy firm, had collapsed in chaos a few months earlier, amidst tears and recriminations.

‘Rhys decided,’ Miranda went on, ‘that it was a good idea to hack the chief executive’s phone.’

‘Who still does that?’ Casey rolled her eyes.

‘And he got such good stuff out of the voicemails that he decided to change the chief executive’s password so that the Banner couldn’t listen in too.’

‘I despair,’ said Casey drily, ‘of our profession.’

‘Anyway, the Banner had clearly been doing the same thing,’ said Miranda.

The battles between the Banner and the Enquiry were notorious. They scheduled their Christmas party on the same evening every year, just so their subs could track each other down for a punch-up later on.

‘Oh dear,’ said Casey.

‘When the Banner found they’d been locked out of the voicemail, they trotted off to the Amner chief exec, asking him about dirty tricks. As you’d expect, he had had it up to his eyeballs with the lot of them. Nevertheless, he let the Banner chief reporter leave a long, complicated message on his phone about some crazy insider-trading scheme going on at Amners. Naturally, Hippy listened to the whole thing, and then splashed the Enquiry on it.’