The words were beginning to blur as John went over the file for the hundredth time. The answer was there; it had to be. That one elusive clue that would bring these bastards down

and give him the front-page story he was after. But the day had been long, and the sun had gone down hours ago.

     Pushing his glasses up with squat, tobacco-stained fingers, he closed his tired eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. Nothing disturbed the silence of the night. No buzz of traffic from the streets below, no clatter of typewriters from beyond his office door. His phone handset lay on its side, lifted from its cradle to stop the constant interruptions.

     With the staff long gone, the office lay unnaturally quiet; even the cleaner had finished for the night. John was just about ready to call it quits too, but he needed those answers. Not since the passing of the Federation Bill in 1901, allowing Australia to become a self-governing nation, had he been so excited about a story, but it was an excitement laced with fear. Should the story fail to stop them, his boys could be in serious trouble. He had to find those responsible before anyone else died. The answer was there, hiding between the lines, taunting him with bloodied hands and a bloody mind.

     He leaned back in his chair, trying to stretch the ache from his shoulders. Laying the file on the desk, he glanced at the smouldering butt in the ashtray, then lit yet another and took a long, deep drag. He waited for that hit of nicotine to ease the itch and give him the soothing release he so needed. Beyond the yellowing light of the desk lamp, the room faded into an eerie darkness, as if nothing else existed beyond his office door. It wove a thread of unease down his back. They’d already threatened two of his journalists on the story, and now one was missing.

     The late-night silence was broken by the distant hum and clank of the elevator on a floor below, but it didn’t break his focus. The hissing of the hydraulic doors as they slid shut was simply white noise. He was immersed in the job at hand. This was the final report, and his frustration was growing. If the answers weren’t here, he didn’t know what he’d do.

     John heard the muffled rumble of a passing lorry, and he heard the muted shouts from a group of drunken sailors on their way back to barracks. He even heard the plaintive cry of a curlew nesting nearby. But he didn’t hear the footsteps pad down the carpeted hallway, he didn’t hear the office door slowly swing open, and he didn’t hear the blast from the army-issue handgun. The bullet ripped through his body before the sound reached his ears. It neatly pierced the skin on entry, exploding out the other side and leaving a hole the size of a small fist in his chest. He looked down at the bloodied mess splayed across the pages before him and frowned. John Symes was dead before his head hit the desk.