The Night Desk – Part 1: Deadline

"Cut it," said Callum.

"All of it?"

"All except the third paragraph."

Inês stared at her copy, bleeding red ink. She was thirty-one, a new reporter on the night desk, fresh from a magazine where nobody had ever cut a word. The newsroom hummed around her: keyboards, police scanners, half-empty coffee cups, a TV muttering on mute. It was eleven at night. The deadline was at one.

Callum was thirty-five, the night editor, rumpled and unshaven, a pen behind each ear and an expression of gentle exhaustion. "It's good," he added, seeing her face. "The third paragraph is excellent. The rest is you trying to impress me."

"I wasn't."

"You were. It's all right. Everyone does it."

"What do I do?"

"Write the third paragraph again, as the first. Then stop."

She did. It took ten minutes. The new version was clean and sharp and alive. Callum read it in silence, nodded once, and sent it to the page.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For not being kind about it."

He smiled, a flash of warmth. "I'm kind later."

At twelve-thirty, a fire broke out at a warehouse on the river, and the whole newsroom lurched into motion. Inês grabbed her notebook and her coat. Callum yelled instructions across the room, calm and quick. Her story went in at ten to one, with four minutes to spare.

Afterwards, they stood in the empty newsroom with paper cups of terrible coffee.

"Can I ask you something?" said Inês.

"Yes."

"Do you always make people better?"

"Only the ones who try," said Callum.

"Green?" she said, on an impulse.

"Green," said Callum, slowly. "Very green. Go home. Come back tomorrow."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Front Page.