“Suppose we run the story, and let them climb out of it. I know – we know – that they can’t.”

Ryan shook his head. Across the desk, he looked like a rock of sanity – a disbelieving rock. “Not for this newspaper,” he said, after a moment. “The editor doesn’t like it, and I don’t like it either. If you print news that way, you can print anything. Suppose we run a story” – he hesitated, though for a few seconds only – “‘Churchill is England’s Number One Communist’. We sell a lot of copies, then it turns out we’re wrong, and we have to say we’re sorry. Plus a million dollars to make the fact clear …” He shook his head again, more vigorously still. “Not for the Telegram.”

“But this story’s true.”

“Sure. We just want proof. Proof that no one can knock down.”

“What sort of proof?” Grant knew, even as he asked the question, what Ryan would answer.

“There’s only one sort of proof, Harry. The girl herself. You’ll have to go back to New York, and get the story from Esther.”

“She won’t be on view.”

Ryan smiled again, sardonically. “You’re on the Star-Telegram – and this time it works a different way. You’ve got to get her story, somehow. Find a way. Phone her up – bribe the secretary – knock Mrs Bannister out – hide under the bed. You know the story’s there. Go out and get it.”

“They’re due here in Boston, in three days’ time.”

“So much the better. Wait here for them. Catch them on their home ground.”

Grant was astonished to hear his own voice saying: “I’m hoping she’s innocent.”

There was a long silence in the office. Across the desk, Ryan’s strong, square face below the crew-cut grey hair was devoid of expression. Finally he said: “Innocent is a big word. It’s the biggest there is. It’ll need to be, in this case.”

“I mean,” said Grant, with difficulty, “I hope she’s been doing all this because she was forced to.”

“Me too. But ask her. She’ll talk to you.” Ryan’s eyes flickered upwards suddenly. “Won’t she?”

Grant felt himself blushing vividly. “I reckon so.”

The news editor nodded again. “There’s always an angle.” But the words were not cynical: they sounded, indeed, like an attempt at comfort. Ryan was sitting back now, at ease, understanding, immensely human. “It’s a great story, Harry,” he said gently. “We want to do it just right.”

Chapter Fourteen

How to see her? Harry Grant, sitting in an air-cooled bar on Tremont Street, on the day that Esther Costello was due to return to Boston, had still not found the answer to his problem. There were too many things in the way: too many facts, and too many thoughts. Esther would be living at the Commonwealth Avenue apartment: she would be guarded with triple vigilance by Mrs Bannister, who must guess that he would be back in Boston himself; and she might be unwilling to see him anyway. He recalled, with prickling shame, some of the things he had said to Esther, aloud, when he thought she could not hear. There had been something about a good-looking body, something about kissing … It could well be that she would be scared of him for that reason, leaving out of account the fact that he planned to expose her.