Off the Record

I have knocked on flyscreens and said to mothers of kidnapped toddlers, 'Don't you feel guilty for leaving your child in the front yard alone?' I have shamed them to tears for the photographer. I have gatecrashed funerals, linked innocent corpses to local crime syndicates. Or feigned empathy to the grief-stricken to make copy from their hard-luck stories. I enjoyed the kudos of my name beneath headlines on front pages and became used to the heartlessness as if blank inside. I was doing it for my family—it was worth the cruelty.That line of work gives your eyes a plastic appearance. I've noticed it in the mirror, a dead glitter.Callum Smith—Wordsmith, Words for short—is a newspaper journalist of the old school. He knows how to write a story that sings, knows all the tricks of the tabloid trade. And he likes to drink with his colleagues, sometimes to flirt dangerously with young women.When his marriage blows up after a night of drinking goes way...