‘Something like that,’ Toby said drily.

‘Well,’ Linley said, leaning back in his chair with the air of one who thinks he has the upper hand. ‘Then I think we need to set some ground rules, don’t we?’

‘Ground rules?’

‘If you’re going to use something I’ve done the work on as the foundation for a piece in a national, I want to make sure I’m going to get the credit.’

‘Ahh,’ said Toby. ‘You think that’s how it works, do you?’

The journalist gave an unctuous smile. ‘It’s going to be how it works for me. I’m not planning to spend my life working for the local rag. If whatever you’ve seen of mine is good enough to bring the great Toby Hollingwood to my door, it’s obviously good enough for the nationals. You’re not stealing that from me. I want it myself. So, come on. Which piece was it that caught your eye? Let’s talk.’

‘All right,’ Toby said, taking out the folded cutting he’d kept from the paper and spreading it out on the table in front of them both. ‘Let’s do that.’

Linley glanced at the article, then leaned forward with a frown on his face. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘It’s the article I want to talk to you about.’

‘That? Some spat about a shitty local landmark? That’s nothing. What do you care about that?’

‘Have you ever visited Newton Dunbar? Been to the lighthouse?’

The younger man shifted back on his chair. ‘I did a lot of research.’

‘But you never actually visited?’

‘I didn’t need to.’

‘For a front-page article, you didn’t even need to visit the subject? That’s a pretty astonishing statement, isn’t it?’

‘Look—’

‘There are serious allegations in this piece. Tell me how you went about verifying them.’

‘I don’t think I like your tone.’

‘How about if I added a “please”?’ Toby asked. ‘That make it better for you?’

Linley sighed, then put down his coffee mug and leaned toward Toby with a conspiratorial air. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You know how this game works. Local papers – they’re a thing of the past. Give it a couple more years, this’ – here he tapped the clipping – ‘won’t even exist. Our physical sales are down to low double figures some weeks. The only way to keep sales up is to give the people something interesting to read. That’s what I try to do.’

‘Even if everything you write is a straight lie?’

‘Hey,’ Linley pointed a finger at Toby. ‘You can’t say that.’

‘Sure I can,’ Toby told him, ‘because it is. You didn’t do the work to verify a single statement in this fairy tale, and if you had bothered to investigate even slightly, you’d know as well as I do that there isn’t an element of truth to any of this.’

‘I haven’t libelled anyone,’ said Linley. ‘I make it clear that all the statements are alleged. I make no concrete claims.’

‘No, you quote only one source – who was that, by the way?’