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Alex made another pit-stop before he headed back to his office. The picture desk was like the beating heart of the news room. More than ever, pictures generated stories, so this department was one of the busiest, with junior editors scanning the wires looking for images, fielding requests and acting as a conduit for snaps from paparazzi and the eagle-eyed public alike. And right at the centre of it all, like a craggy spider, was Gary McTavish.
He grabbed a couple of coffees from the machine and crossed over to Gary’s desk.
‘Urgent job for you,’ he said, handing him a cup.
The Chronicle’s Chief Picture Editor was one of Alex’s favourite members of staff. He was pushing sixty, but giving up a chronic addiction to Red Bull and taking up cycling had seen him lose some weight and look ten years younger. As one of the old timers, he was used to the right-now-if-not-sooner pace of the newsroom. If there was one person who put in longer hours at the Chronicle, it was Gary.
‘Thanks for the rocket fuel,’ he grinned, blowing on the hot liquid.
‘Shoot,’ he said.
‘Michael Sachs, high-finance guy. Currently building a huge development near Hyde Park called ClearView.’
‘What are we looking for?’
‘Not sure,’ said Alex. ‘Parties, charity dos, openings. especially anything in the last year. Make that the last five years. There might not be much, but get me everything.’
Gary nodded, tapped his pencil decisively on the desk. ‘I’ll get on it now. What’s this for by the way?’
‘News piece I’m working on.’
Gary raised an eyebrow.
‘Getting your hands dirty again, eh? Good stuff.’
‘Yeah, it is isn’t it?’ he said, smiling.
Back in his office, Alex shut the door and dropped into his ergonomic chair, spinning it round until he faced the plate glass window and the city, darkening in the dusk, beyond it. It was true what Gary said. He’d spent the past two years, before, during and after the Felix Tait trail banging on about the vital importance of journalism and a free press and yet when was the last time he’d actually reported on anything? When was the last time he’d actually written anything? And it was worse than that, wasn’t it? Alex was actually thinking about abandoning the Chronicle’s sinking ship to join Dominic’s digital project for a life of more of the same – more meetings, staffing issues and glad-handling the advertisers rather than holding them to account. If he really cared about crusading journalism that made a difference, why wasn’t he down with the troops, fighting?
Sighing, he tried calling Lara again but when it went straight to message, he flipped through some layouts that had been sent over by the features department, not really concentrating.
‘Are pizzas on the way, boss?’ asked Steve from the production department. Alex edited the Monday edition every fortnight, and from the start, he’d ordered take-out for the staff who worked long into the evening.
He paid for it out of his own pocket, and at some point, he guessed people had forgotten that and considered it a company perk. He didn’t mind. People like Steve had been in since 9am and wouldn’t leave until the night-shift team arrived once the first edition had gone off to press.
He gave a thumbs up sign and hopped online to order a dozen Margheritas.
The food had just arrived when Gary walked past his office slipping on his cycling helmet, his trousers legs already cuffed with clips for his cycle journey home.
‘I’ve got to push off early tonight. Wife’s birthday. Pete’s in charge of the desk,’ he said, name-checking his deputy. ‘The stuff you want is on the server,’ he said, fiddling with his hat strap.
‘That was quick.’
‘You know me. I’ve emailed you a link.’
‘Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Now push off before you’re in trouble with the missus for being late. And by the way, that hat makes you look like an alien.’
‘State of the art, mate.’ He grinned and gave him a thumbs-up before he left.
It wasn’t early, no matter what Gary said. It was almost ten o’clock and the office had taken on a more muted sound. The night shift was beginning to trickle in, Monday’s first edition, had been declared ‘off-stone’ and sent to print. Although the lights were always on in a daily newspaper, the frenetic energy of the office simmered down to an industrious hum.
‘Come on Michael Sachs, let’s have a look at you, then,’ he muttered, as he clicked on the file with the most recent date.
Whoever said a picture was worth a thousand words had probably been a photographer, but Alex had always known the value of the picture desk with his stories. Back in the day, it had been paparazzi snaps: Britney shaving her head, Nigella’s marriage imploding, Sean Penn coming out swinging. But Instagram had stopped all that: celebs could tell their own stories on their feeds, and the big news events were documented by a thousand cameras from a thousand angles. The image was still king, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be manipulated and controlled.
Just like this, thought Alex, scrolling through hundreds of near-identical shots of Michael Sachs. At art gallery openings, charity dinners and fundraisers, or with happy benefactors of the Sachs numerous charitable foundations.
He wasn’t sure why he was surprised that there were so many pictures of Sachs. Money men were always out and out on the party circuit flexing their wallet, improving their profile, showing off their Masters of the Universe credentials. And although middle-aged financiers were not of obvious interest to the press, and by extension, the paparazzi, they were often surrounded by beautiful women, which did make them of interest to editors looking to glamorise their pages.
