I ignore him, skipping past his newspaper kiosk on Deptford High Street. It’s one of those curiously warm winter days when, if you had to guess, you might say it was spring. There’s even a green shoot or two around the place, as it’s been so wet over Christmas. I can spot them even in the dark, in the half-light of a winter morning, when the sun doesn’t come up until gone eight. Not that Christmas, or New Year for that matter, have even registered as far as I’m concerned.

Jemima was right. I found the Gazette by chance on the way home after who knows how many night shifts in a row, scrabbling for more papers to read. Even this tiny corner of South-East London was desperate for more hands on deck after those towers collapsed. No one could get enough of the news. Between that and the shop, my mind’s been blurring and smudging everything. Even my dreams are out of focus, faded and fuzzy around the edges. Sometimes Carly even shows up in Tora Bora, which turns out to be just outside London, deep underneath Katie Jolley’s house.

‘Long night, was it?’

Frank’s leer fades behind me as I scurry past and into the office. I can see Carly, just for a second, as I blink into the strip lights. I just have to blink again though, and she’s gone.

‘Hi,’ I say to no one in particular, clearing my throat.

A few heads move, but that’s it. I loop my coat over my arm, scanning the room for something to do. There’s the low hum of typing, a few distant phone conversations, but otherwise it’s quiet, little 232peaks and troughs of activity lapping through the air. Laurie’s at the back, in the editor’s office, a small room barely bigger than a cupboard, stuffed full of more paper than I’ve ever seen. Piles, stacks, columns of the stuff, they may as well be part of the walls. I know he’s in there because even though I can’t see him, the papers against the back wall are yellow. They go grey when the desk lamp’s off.

I take a deep breath and step towards Andy, the sub at the end of the row. Sub. The word pops into my mind like I understand it, because now, I do. I’m learning a completely new language.

‘Coffee?’ I grip at the coat over my arm like it’s a shield across my body.

‘Mmmmm,’ he says, frowning as he looks up, a finger of ash falling on to the desk from his cigarette. He doesn’t know my name, but none of them really do, except Laurie.

‘Can I bring you one too?’ I arch my eyebrows at Kevin, two cubicles down.