PART ONE: BAD SCIENCE

The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

ONE

October 1969

In every office of every newspaper in every country around the world, there is a desk with a telephone on it specially reserved for phone calls from the public. Everyone has a different name for it, but generally it is called the 'crank phone' because of all the crank calls received on it. Calls from mothers wanting to know whether we want to take a photograph of their daughter who has just won a prize in some competition. Calls from residents complaining about neighbours that are too noisy, or too quiet or just too different. Calls from people who think they have seen something but they are not sure what it was. Calls from the collection of proud, crazed, caring, hateful people called the public.

Most newspaper offices use the crank phone to test the resolve of cadet reporters. A week spent taking calls on the crank phone will break most trained professionals, let alone those just starting in the job. I know: I served my time on the same posting when I was a cadet reporter in my native New Zealand.

So when I walked past the crank phone in the offices of the Daily Chronicle and heard it ringing, my first reaction was to look for someone - anyone but myself - to answer the telephone. The cadet assigned to the desk for the day had done her best to disappear, the copy-boy was conspicuous by his absence and nobody lower down the newsroom pecking-order was within shouting distance. It was still mid-morning and the newsroom of a morning paper only comes alive after lunch when the hacks start to stumble in, recovering from the night before. Despite this, the daily fog of cigarette smoke was already beginning to form around the fluorescent lights set into the low ceiling. A few battered manual typewriters were being worked in a desultory manner down in the business section, but only a handful of general news reporters were visible. Worse still, the chief reporter was lurking at his desk, watching me to see what I would do.

Just three days previously he had posted a memorandum on the notice board above the assignment book, commanding all staff to make sure the crank phone was always answered within four rings. The week before the Chronicle had missed out on a major scoop when a regular reader had been unable to get any response on our Newstip Line (as we grandly called the crank phone in print) and had called one of our rivals with the story instead. I felt the chief reporter's eyes burning into my back as I glanced around quickly one more time for assistance, without luck. There was nothing for it, I would have to answer the damn telephone. I dumped the armful of manila clippings folders marked kennedy, john f. on the desk and picked up the heavy black receiver.

'Hello, Daily Chronicle Newstip Line, James Stevens speaking. How may I help you?' I said in my smoothest voice, all the while inwardly cursing the unknown caller.

'Is that the Daily Chronicle?' asked a male voice with a heavy Welsh accent.

'Yes,' I replied, trying not to let the grimace on my face communicate itself through my voice.

'I understand you pay for stories,' continued the caller.

'Sometimes, if the stories are big enough. What's this about?'

'My name's Mullins, see, and I'm a porter at the Ashbridge Cottage Hospital and there's something strange going on here,' he replied nervously, before explaining. I quickly found myself scrambling for a pen and paper to scratch down the details before he rung off. Grasping the details in my hand, I ran to the chief reporter's desk.

'I need a photographer and a news car now!'

The chief reporter arched an eyebrow at me. 'Why?' he asked, his voice heavy with disdain. A consummate professional, he lived, breathed and excreted his job 24 hours a day. Like most journalists he smoked far too much, liked a drink too often and had enough caffeine coursing through his system to keep entire countries awake for a week.

He was also a thorough-going bastard who delighted in torturing cadets, foreigners or anyone else he regarded with suspicion. I was convinced I was at the top of his hit-list, but nearly every reporter in the newsroom believed the same of themselves. When the chief reporter died of the inevitable heart attack, there would be a long line of journalists waiting to urinate on his grave.

'We've just had a call, there's something strange going on in the Epping area. Last night there was a heatwave across the whole region and a shower of meteorites came down in Oxley Woods. Apparently the whole area was cordoned off by the authorities - no one allowed in or out.' I explained as quickly as I could.

'Hardly news, we've already had a report in from our stringer in Essex,' smiled the chief reporter, picking up a sheet from one of the copy-typists. His face was pale and lined, with dark rings beneath his eyes from too many late night deadlines and not enough sleep. His greying, wavy black hair was combed back from his forehead. Like all former police reporters, he wore a regulation-blue police detective's shirt and dark blue tie to accompany his woollen suit. The jacket perpetually hung over the back of his swivel chair, from which he commanded his troops like a regimental sergeant major. He seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in trying to crush anyone who thought they knew something he did not. National Service had a lot to answer for, I thought.