‘We’re going to be screening some of the new ads that are going out tomorrow,’ said Vincent, as the screen behind the stage lit up, ‘and I’d value your opinion, but mostly I’m doing this to let each of the talent I’ve picked out from all the papers look like they’re going places, so the rest of the staff tune into that, and –’ he plucked a card from his pocket and put it into Sarah’s hand – ‘you now have my personal contact details, so if you or I need to ask each other anything, we can both do that. Or, to not insult your intelligence, you’re going to keep tabs on your boss for me.’

‘Ah,’ said Sarah.

‘Standard practice. Geoff’s an honest bloke, and I don’t think he’ll lie to me, but I always like to have another honest source in reserve. Oh, here we go.’ On the screen now was a scene of a group of footballers all gathered around, engrossed in an issue of the Herald with the headline ‘Invasion of the Immigrants’. The footballers were all black. A couple of them had their mouths open in extraordinary astonishment, gaping at whatever the contents of the paper were meant to be. The music that accompanied the clip was something Latin and trumpety. ‘Do you think,’ asked Vincent, as if he was asking for a second opinion about a corked bottle of wine, ‘that this ad is a tiny bit racist?’

Quill looked to Sarah, who was obviously making a split-second decision about telling truth to power. ‘Yes.’

‘Good! Good! Why?’

‘It makes them look stupid.’

‘So you might be moved to complain to the advertising standards authority?’

‘I don’t know if I’d go that far.’

‘We’re hoping some people will. That’s why that’s the cheap one. The idea is that it gets banned, we make a great fuss about it, how we thought we’d made a very liberal choice to hire a bunch of black actors. The headline on the paper, that’s to lure people into that way of thinking too. I think if the headline had been about bananas or something, then it would really be racist, not just pretend racist. I’m of Jewish descent myself, so…’ He left that with a shrug. ‘If it’s banned it gets talked about in pubs, replayed on YouTube endlessly, it gets a sort of fascinating sheen to it. It makes us look young and rebellious, which is what our research tells us is what we’re most seen as not being. It’s called “outrage marketing”.’

‘Ah,’ said Sarah, ‘right.’

‘Hmm. You’re still against us showing the clip, though?’

‘Yeah.’ She said it as if it was just narrowly the best of no really good options.

He laughed. ‘This is all good. I need you to be honest with me.’

‘What’s the music about?’ asked Quill.