WAR

When it came to pursuing a story, I allowed nothing to get in my way. It was a war to be first. I fired my opening salvo via mobile phone, from the driving seat of my car, parked outside my house. I rang each tabloid editor in turn, playing one off against the other, and quickly sent the already high bids soaring.

Instead of the usual shouting and swearing from the editors, as their offers escalated so their tone became sweeter. It was weird to hear them talk like that, and it made me shudder, but I persevered. When it came to tabloid journalism, I had the sheer guts to hang on, for as long as it took – despite the creepy lack of tongue-lashings from the other end of the line.

“Can you guarantee quotes?”

“Tell me what you want them to contain and they are yours,” I soothed.

“If I print it, will you have a word with your relatives at Buckingham Palace about a peerage for me?”

“Naturally.”

The pitched battle to secure the exclusive raged until, amongst the bodies of the fallen, a single victor stood. Me. Who turned her keys in the ignition and drove to the newsroom of the winning editor. Heck, a newsroom could almost be a nice place to visit, if it wasn't for this damned circulation war. As a tabloid detective, I survived this hell by never running out of ammunition – new stories.

SNATCH

A car overtook mine, swerved across the road and blocked my route. Before I could wind down my window and shout, “Oi, get your steering fixed, you moron,” its driver got out and raced over. Clad in black, he wore a black mask too. Fear stalked the streets of London.

“Where is it?” he yelled.

“It’s you, isn’t it? From the coffee shop?” If I had not been expecting an ordinary driver, however irate, or not had my head full of the cold hard cash I was about to collect, my reaction may have been better.

“The envelope. Give it to me. Now.” He was a card-carrying psycho.

“Shan’t.” I pressed a defensive hand against the shoulderbag in my lap, where it currently rested.

He grabbed it, raced to his car, gunned the engine and roared away.

BLACK

Like any stage magician will tell you, the secret is to distract the audience’s attention… and that’s official. Sure, he had seized the original documents. But not before I had scanned them and saved a copy in my online email account. When I reached the editor’s office, I’d download and print them. All the fiend in black had gained were some out of date lipsticks. Sadly for him, none were black. Bane Thorn was now a sitting target. Which was too bad. In war, there are always casualties.

VANISHED

In his studio, Major Harris-Argyll poured three glasses of brandy, his favourite tipple. “Where do you imagine this Bane Thorn chappie has hidden himself?”

Rowena shrugged and put down the melted clock she was holding. She was grateful to break the nude pose for the newest, Dali-inspired masterpiece by the Major. “Bane is a slippery customer. I would hardly be surprised if he’d left the country already, just in case, when the documents went missing. He’s worked for some incredibly shady people, like the South American dictator he rebranded.”

“In which case, good riddance to bad rubbish,” I added. I quaffed my brandy. That many of the notes for Bane’s plot were written in his own hand, on his own company’s stationery, was hardly a smart move. The famous public figure he’d intended to kill had thanked me in person, by passing on some delightfully juicy insider TV gossip. The murderous plan had been hatched when the famous public figure had dropped Bane Thorn as his PR.

Bane, wherever you are holed up, it will only be a matter of time before I can gloat, “Gotcha!”.