LITMIR.BIZ

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doing exactly the same things.

      Fortunately for Johnny, he’d been taken in hand by Bill Fox. An old hack with nicotine-stained fingers to match his yellowing short-back-and-sides, Bill had been in the business for more than forty years, working his beat even through the war years, asthma having kept him out of the army.

      Perhaps Bill recognised something of himself in the eighteen-year-old human dynamo, or perhaps he was impressed by Johnny’s sharp mind and fierce ambition, then again, maybe he was just won over by the cheeky grin. Whatever the reason, Bill had begun teaching the newcomer everything he knew, ranging from the intricacies of the News’ house style to the tricks of the trade: how to grab a reader by the lapels and not let him go, how to cut and cut until every word was made to work.

      Each time Johnny delivered a piece of copy, Bill would lean precariously back in his chair and deliver words of wisdom, punctuating his speech by stabbing the air with the 2B pencil he kept behind his ear: “Remember, Coppernob, with the honourable exceptions of wine and women, less is more.”

      But Bill’s advice went beyond the craft of writing and fine-tuning copy. He had covered subjects that Johnny’s Technical College diploma hadn’t touched upon. For him, journalism meant pounding the streets, ferreting out facts and stirring things up. While others his age had opted for a managerial role, sitting behind a desk telling others what to do, Bill preferred a more hands-on approach. He’d been delighted to have Johnny tag along as he demonstrated how to make the most of a lead, and to watch Bill in action was to enjoy a master-class in the art of interviewing reluctant witnesses and worming the truth out of those who were determined to bury it. Persistence, patience and curiosity were his watchwords.

      As a result of this apprenticeship, Johnny learned how to turn to advantage the very things that might have worked against him: his deceptively young looks and short stature. He no longer minded being underestimated—if anything, he encouraged it. His job became so much easier when others lowered their guard.

      Fox himself was prone to be underestimated by colleagues who judged him on his lack of promotion or love of booze, but to Johnny, he was a hero. Bill was the only person Johnny would tolerate calling him Coppernob—even though his hair was quite obviously strawberry blond.

      The crime desk was, in reality, made up of six desks pushed together in a cramped corner of the third floor. These were occupied by a junior, four reporters—two for the day shift and two for the night—and the crime correspondent. Having made his way up from junior, Johnny was determined to gain his next promotion as soon as possible—preferably before his twenty-third birthday. Under a different boss, he would have been moving up the ladder much faster, but Gustav Patsel was a little bully in an age of bullies. While Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain and Mussolini in Italy ranted and threw their weight about, Patsel swaggered and held sway in the newsroom. Everything about this cantankerous, capricious bore was round: his piggy-eyes peered out from behind round, wire-rimmed glasses. His white bald head was reminiscent of a ping-pong ball. His belly seemed to bulge more by the week: probably a result of too much bratwurst. Proud of his German heritage, Patsel was not shy of vaunting the führer’s galvanising effect on his homeland: the Volkswagen “people’s car”, designed by Ferdinand Porsche and launched in February, was the best car in the world; the Berlin Olympics in August had been the best games ever und so weiter—though he’d been strangely silent back in March when the Nazis invaded the Rhineland.

      His colleagues had unaffectionately dubbed him Pencil and ridiculed him behind his back, but Patsel survived by virtue of a Machiavellian grasp of office politics. Even so, it was an open secret that the humourless Hun was looking to jump ship—he had been at loggerheads with either the night editor or the editor-in-chief ever since Johnny had joined the paper.

      As much as he longed for Patsel’s departure, Johnny was terrified by rumours that Simkins might be poached to replace him.

      The sooner Johnny got promotion, the more secure he’d be. However, to achieve that he needed to make a splash—and that meant a spectacular exclusive. The one that had made his name was a piece exposing a drugs racket at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. A senior pharmacist had masterminded a scheme whereby he and his cohorts were making a fortune on the black market, selling drugs from the hospital’s pharmacy. At a time when patients were struggling to pay for every pill, his cut-price rates had, he claimed, been an act of charity —a noble motive undermined by the fact that not many people needed addictive painkillers in wholesale quantities.

      The whole thing had been going on under Johnny’s nose for a while before he smelled a story; back then, his mind had been on other things. It was during a visit to his dying mother that he had been surreptitiously offered cheap morphine by a member of the medical staff. He would have accepted, except that the drug was useless when, as in this case, the patient had bone cancer.

      Johnny used his rage at his mother’s imminent death to work tirelessly—with Bill’s help—to expose the racket. The finished piece had raised questions in Parliament and renewed demands for the establishment of a National Health Service. However, apart from a few more prison cells being filled, nothing came of it all.

      Johnny’s reward had been promotion from office junior to fully-fledged reporter. Unfortunately, thanks to Patsel, that had translated into the dubious distinction of reporting from the Old Bailey.

      Court reporters—not to be confused with those that dealt with the affairs of the once German residents of Buckingham Palace—were afforded little respect because their authors were spoon-fed the copy. They did not have to sniff out stories, follow up leads or track down witnesses. They only had to get off their backsides when the judge stood up. Trials dealt with the aftermath of crime in a calm and clinical fashion. There was none of the excitement of the hunt, no vying to get ahead of the pack in pursuit of your quarry.

      To make matters worse, Simkins—who was not confined to the courtrooms of the Old Bailey—had just landed a scoop that had eclipsed Johnny’s drug-ring effort, being simpler and juicier.

      On the very morning that the police released details of the murder of Margaret Murray, a nineteen-year-old girl who worked for a firm of solicitors, the Chronicle had run an interview with the killer’s wife. It was an excellent piece of reporting—except, in Johnny’s indignant opinion, it should never have been written at all. Simkins had come by his exclusive using dubious means.

      The moment the tip-off came in from his source inside the Metropolitan Police, Simkins had got on the phone to Scotland Yard. Realising that no information would be forthcoming if he identified himself as a reporter, he’d passed himself off as the concerned spouse of the man in custody. Though his normal speaking voice was tainted with the trademark drawl of an Old Harrovian, Simkins was a master of verbal disguise. Shortly after their first meeting, he had taken to calling Johnny at the crime desk with bogus complaints about his latest report or cock-and-bull tip-offs delivered in a variety of accents ranging from a thick Irish brogue, Welsh lilt or stage Cockney. His ability to mimic women’s voices as well as men’s was uncanny. Nevertheless, Johnny, who was not that wet behind the ears, soon caught on. The pranks had, however, taught him a valuable lesson: it was always advisable to meet informants face-to-face. In the flesh it was easier to be certain that someone was who they said they were, and he could watch for the tell-tale clues that revealed when they were lying.

      Unfortunately the dozy detective Simkins spoke to at the Yard had fallen for the ruse and told him everything he needed to corroborate the story. Having winkled out the address of the arrested man—“He’s told you where we live, has he, officer?”—Simkins had gone straight round there.

      Turning up on the poor woman’s doorstep ahead of the local constabulary, he’d given her the impression that he was a plain-clothes detective, and then delivered the news of her dear husband’s arrest.

      Until that moment, Mrs Shaw had believed her Arthur, a travelling salesman for a toy company, was away on business in Newcastle. Within minutes she had learned that he’d been unfaithful to her, that he’d got a young secretary not even half his age in the family way and, in the heat of a furious post-coital row about a backstreet abortion, had strangled the poor girl to death. Mrs Shaw had thought the

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