Now the only thing we’re certain of is that she is in hiding. Sara Carter and Catherine Allen may be dead but the woman who lived those names is not. Her life has detonated and we pressed the red button. It feels wrong. All of it.

‘Thank God for Brinley,’ Lawrie says. ‘At least we’ve got the second part of her exclusive running tomorrow. Otherwise, we’d be fucked.’ He gifts me a smile so dazzling I want to kiss him, but I can’t because he’s Lawrie and I’m Brinley, and we don’t think about each other in that way, do we?

Russell from the Sun saunters over. There’s an energy about him. It’s in his walk and the restless drumming of his fingers against his thigh and the swing of his packed leather holdall. Garth has gone to the bar.

‘Leaving so soon?’ says Lawrie, eyeing our rival over the rim of his beer bottle.

‘Something like that.’ And it’s the evasive way he doesn’t quite meet our eyes that gives him away. Russell has got a story. A bloody good one, by the looks of it.

‘So what’s your angle tomorrow?’ says Lawrie. His tone is casual, as if it doesn’t matter, but we all know it does. We all know it makes the difference between a good night’s sleep and a bollocking from the editor.

Russell glances at his watch. I know what he’s thinking. Is it late enough to tell them? Will it give them a chance to catch us up?

‘We have got something, yes,’ he says, relenting. ‘But I can’t tell you what it is. If it’s any consolation, I doubt you’ll get a hard time from your desk, OK?’

Before we can question him further, he’s gone, slipping through the pub doors and into the night.

‘Great,’ sighs Lawrie. We talk shop for a while. Listen to the pub quiz. But he’s distracted and it’s clear he’s worried about Russell’s story. His hand is resting on the scarred wooden table and, without thinking, I lay my palm across it. He looks up at me and there’s a question mark in his expression. My heart runs faster.

He puts down his beer bottle, a smile playing around his lips. Not arrogant or self-satisfied. Not a smirk. But a secret kind of joy, that’s the only way I can think to describe it, and it floors me, that smile. Because it’s a long time since anyone has smiled at me like that.

‘Brinley . . .’ he says.

The laughter lines around his eyes deepen. He moves his chair closer until our legs are touching and passes his thumb across the back of my hand. The feel of him loosens something inside me.