There’s nothing Jack can say to that. Harriet Hill not only works for a more successful newspaper but it’s a daily and has a wider circulation. She’s been there for years and probably has hundreds of contacts in all the right places. Whereas I – a recently disgraced national news reporter – am still finding my way.

Jack takes my arm and leads me along the street. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘It won’t be that bad.’

It is that bad. Ted rants at me, Jack, even Ellie the trainee, although she hasn’t done anything apart from sit at the computer typing up press releases.

‘Dylan Bird,’ he yells. ‘Such an obvious one. We should have this story. Not the fucking Daily News.’

I want to tell him we can’t have everything, that we’re doing our best. And what about the reporters at HQ? I don’t see them helping us out with this.

‘You,’ he says, rounding on me. ‘You know the family. You have an in, for Christ’s sake. Use it to your advantage, would you?’

Before I can reply he storms back to his desk behind his partition. If he had a door I know he would have slammed it.

I don’t get the chance to tell him that at least we have a story about Clive’s drug-dealing past.

I spend the rest of the afternoon with my head down, typing up the story about Clive being barred from the pub, although I’ve missed the deadline, which means it won’t go in until Friday’s paper. I want to tell Ted that it’s not my fault the Daily News has one over on us – mainly the fact that they’re daily. Their stories will always hit newsstands first, and their website is plusher and more modern than ours.

Our front-page story today was that Heather had come around from her coma (something the sodding News hasn’t got, although did Ted focus on that? No. He’s too busy worrying about the stories we don’t have). I asked the subs at HQ to keep my by-line off the story. I’m sure Margot will suspect it’s me, but equally it won’t be long before the other papers get hold of it. I kept it brief and to the point so as not to antagonize Margot – or, more particularly, Adam.

I haven’t heard from Margot since I saw her at the hospital on Friday. But I need to make contact – I don’t want us to lose touch now that Heather is awake.