‘Have you already got someone writing all this up? Can I work with them? Please?’

‘No, you can’t,’ he says, another shower of paper falling behind him as he suddenly stands. ‘You, my girl, are finally being let off the leash.’

‘Where?’ I say, clutching the fax as I follow him, skipping at the words ‘off the leash’.

‘That lazy, not to mention useless, excuse for a court reporter that I must have hired while under the influence of, oh, I don’t fucking know what, appears to be in the throes of one hangover too many and has not shown up for at least the zillionth time in his career.’

‘I’m going to court? Which one? Really?’ I practically have to jog to keep up as Laurie wheels round the corner to the kitchen, reaching for my coat hung on the back of the door.

‘You do know you don’t have to keep this in here anymore?’

‘I never know where I’ll be sitting, do I?’ I shrug it on, crumpling the fax into my pocket.

‘I need you at the Old Bailey. They’re tying up some fag-end on Operation Andromeda. A back-door event, but still…’249

I brace myself in the doorframe, other hand tightening round the paper in my fist. I can see Laurie’s still talking but I can’t hear a word. All the wallpaper in my head, gluey and thick, may as well have been painted in watercolour, washing away in great blurry tides so Carly’s grey face is all I can see. Laurie’s raging now as he stalks out, hands waving in the air as he yells. I summon the towers, trying to cover every inch of her with billowing clouds of ash and smoke.

‘…we have to cover whenever somebody so much as farts on Andromeda, don’t we? You’ve got to act big to dream big … no point behaving like a local paper if you’re making a play to be regional, I told him. If they want me to expand across London then we have to scrap with the big dogs … and do I really have to justify covering every inch of one of the biggest inquiries of the bloody century? Anyway. Have you got all that? You’re sure you know what you’re doing?’