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Frazz pressed the button on the machine and the tape ceased whirring with a loud beep, replaced by a babble of speeded up voices, before they became the recognisable tones of Lynda and local businessman, Mr Jarrett:
“… I think we can come to a profitable arrangement…”
Frazz stopped the recording, and turned to look at everyone else around the desk.
“And?” said Kenny, who had no time for interruptions this close to finalising another edition. “Lynda said she was going to see Jarrett. She took Colin.”
“Or she’s scrapping the article,” suggested Sarah. “Face it, Kenny. It’s a risk. We all knew that, and we can’t afford it, not after last week.”
Frazz moved away, and shrugged on his jacket. “Exactly. So I don’t think it’s worth my time hanging around here. See you.”
*
“What does Frazz know?” said Spike, who was sitting on the corner of the desk. “I mean, nothing you couldn’t write on the back of a postcard, anyway. Hey, Sarah, why the coat? It’s not cold in here.”
Sarah glanced over at them; her mouth set in a line. “She took Colin, Spike. Try this: all we’ve got at the end of the day is Melissa Baverstock’s opinion. Hearsay. How about, instead Lynda takes Colin and strikes an advertising deal instead of running the article?”
“Look, Lynda said she was going to -.”
Sarah walked away. “Yes. Of course she did, Kenny. Except I’m not going to wait around here. There’s no way I’m altering a word of that article, just because we happen to be short of cash.”
*
“She wouldn’t, would she?” said Spike, who hadn’t moved. “Not this. Not even after last week.”
The phone rang, and Tiddler reached across between them to answer it. “Junior Gazette.”
“Tiddler,” muttered Kenny in half-hearted annoyance.
She ignored him. “Colin? We need extra advertising space on page eight? For Jarretts. You sure?”
Tiddler put the phone down, and looked over at Kenny. “Got that? I’m going home.”
“Tiddler -.”
She grinned. “I was on my way out anyway. I have a life, not like some people round here.”
Kenny and Spike exchanged a look as she left.
“Fair comment,” said Spike, with a shrug.
*
Spike was playing with the tape machine now, fast-forwarding it back to the same section and listening to it over and over:
…Maybe we can come to a profitable arrangement…
“Maybe, maybe not,” muttered Spike. He raised his gaze to meet Kenny’s.
Kenny was still making last-minute edits. “What?”
“Well, are we going to sit here like a pair of clowns, waiting for our fearless editor to return and tell us she’s sold us out?”
“Look, the story’s a risk -”
“So let’s not take it?”
“No. That’s it. We knew it was a risk,” said Kenny. “That’s why we have the leisure centre article ready. If she’s scrapping it, she doesn’t need us. She’s got something new, Spike.”
Spike listened to the voices on the tape jabbering at high speed again. “Yeah. Advertising, Kenny. After all – gotta keep the Junior Gazette afloat, or there won’t be any stories. Do you think she’s even got a soul?”
“I’ve heard rumours,” joked Kenny, but when he looked up, he was alone; the door swinging in an empty newsroom.
*
It was Colin who stormed out next. To be more accurate, he stormed in, said, “Forget it, Kenny. We’re finished,” collected a box full of blue clown’s noses that definitely should have been red, and then stormed out.
Kenny shrugged.
*
“Where is everyone?”
Kenny lifted his head at Lynda’s arrival and remembered not to smile too widely, because she didn’t mean everyone; she meant Spike. “They hung on as long as they could, but you know how it is -.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, taking off her coat, and making her way round the desk. “What part of ‘hold the front page’ is that hard to understand?”
Kenny leant his head on his hand. “Beats me, Boss.” It had been obvious, as he’d told Spike. If Lynda wanted extra advertising and the leisure centre article, she didn’t need the rest of the team on standby. She’d wanted more information, and she’d gone to get it. If she’d taken Colin instead of Spike, that was her business and he found, generally speaking, that the whole Spike-Lynda thing was best left well alone by anyone who wasn’t Spike or Lynda.
“But you’re still here?” she added, as she sat down.
Kenny grinned. “It’s not as if I’ve got anything better to do, is it?”
“Right,” said Lynda, but she smiled. “I want everyone back here this instant, unless they’re dead, or Colin. We’ve got one hour to put together an article that’s going to make Mr Jarrett very, very unahppy.”
Kenny reached for the phone. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”