"Uh chaps..."

"Chaps? Chaps... Glen, not a single Brit has used the word 'chaps' since the second world war and even then it was reserved for eighteen-hundreds throwbacks, perched in the corner of a gentleman's club, half asleep nursing a bottle of Brandy. Not even Brandy. Sherry. Besides, Terry's not a bloke. Jesus I mean, you barely qualify yourself."

Glen's cheeks flushed red as he stammered, shuffling about in the snow looking for a response sturdy enough to hurl back in Ollie's tiresome face. He was beaten to the mark by an impatient civil servant.

"Ollie!' Terry's shrill voice threatened to shatter a jagged layer of ice dangling from a street lamp. "Would you stop talking rubbish! We've got to focus. Focus is the key."

"Do you live your whole life in recycled party slogans? Ow!" He recoiled when she whacked him sharply with her purse. "Blimey!"

They were all gathered in the narrow alleyway at the back of Miller's house. It was one of those unassuming patches of concrete with a few bins lined up and piles of snow collected against the neighbour's fence.

Ollie started laughing though it was unclear if it was simply his natural reaction to panic. "Focusing is not going to make Dan Miller's frozen corpse go away."

"Don't you think it's a bit callous to refer to it as – well, you know."

"A corpse? 'cause that's what it is, Terry – a fucking corpse. Mind you, he looks pretty much the same as he did before. Bit more colour in his cheeks. We could mount him to a bit of cardboard and wheel him out every now and then for press conferences. No one would notice the difference."

Terry flinched at the repetition. "Can you stop saying, 'corpse'?"

"Well, what would you like me to call it? Remains, body, carcass, earthly-remnants, stiffy-"

"Stop already."

"I've got an inbuilt thesaurus, Terry – I could go all day. Left over from the Hugh days – he only had one noun and a scattering of adjectives."

Glen rubbed his freezing hands together. He was beyond panic and had already begun to plan how he'd spend the next twenty years in jail. They'd have central heating there, surely? It'd be an improvement. "Yes, it's one of your less-attractive qualities. Right up there necking with 'dreadful taste in scarves'. Tonight's another shocker. What do you call this one? Grass mated with goldfish scales? It's an abomination of yarn."

Terry whipped her phone out, searching through contacts. She pushed it in Ollie's face, already ringing. "We've got to tell Malcolm."

Ollie scampered away from the phone as though it were the sun and he a vampire. "I'm not bloody telling him. No – I don't want the phone – stop shoving the phone in my face! Glen – make Terry stop!"

Glen shrugged. "I'm a drunk throwback nursing Sherry."

"Don't go all manky and soft – you were acting like a twat and I was rightly joshing you for it."

"You were not. You were behaving like a prat."

"A what?"

"Sell-aggrandising, pompous fuck."

"No – I know what it means, you dozy-" God what was the point arguing with a dinosaur over satnav directions? "- it was a how-bloody-dare-you what not a pardon, come again?"

"I'll come again in a minute if we don't do something about Miller."

"That is literally the worse image I've ever had placed in my mind."

'Who ever the fuck this is, you better open your fucking mouth and speak or I'll track you down and snap your opposable thumbs off so that you can never use a piece of technology again unless you fancy txting with your nose, which'll be the only appendage I leave attached.' The phone shouted at them with a thick Scottish accent.

Glen pointed at the phone, which had started swearing so loudly they could all hear it. Ollie put his hand over the microphone and started panicking. "What am I meant to even say?"

"I'd start with, 'Miller's dead'," Glen replied, unhelpfully.

"Very-fucking-helpful."

Malcolm Tucker didn't simply hang up the phone. No. He smashed it repeatedly against his desk making certain that the fuck up that called could feel his displeasure. "That's what'll happen to yer fucking head when I see you next," he added, before finally ending the call.

Sam was calmly sipping tea and eating a biscuit, covering the secret files in a thin layer of crumbs. She barely flinched at the noise coming from his desk. "Problem?"

"Maybe..." he replied, staring at his phone and the new crack across its screen. "You were right, should've bought the Nokia."

Tucker knew that he was supposed to feel some kind of flicker of sadness at the passing of his minister but honestly, Dan Miller was such a boring 2D fuck that the only thing Tucker felt was irritation. That manifested itself in an urge to tear apart another mandarin.

"Miller's not missing anymore."

Sam looked up. "Oh well that's good."

"Bloody dead, isn' he..."

"What?" She dropped a biscuit onto the file. It shattered into a billion pieces, like crunchy snow.

"You know," Malcolm shrugged, setting his phone gently onto the table as a sort of apology, "a zombie in waiting. Part of realms of Hades. Compost for the BBC lawns. Dormouse-style."

"One – that was insensitive, even for you. I realise that he wasn't the most likeable individual in your nest and didn't respond well to torrents of abuse but you still – Malcolm, are you listening to me or playing with your phone? Right – doesn't mean you can say things like that aloud.

"Two – if the people we're exposing have escalated to murder, we need to stop and have a think about this. We're obviously trampling over more than your reputation."

"Stop what?" Malcolm lifted his hands in defeat. "We haven't really done anything yet." Sam held up the stolen files they'd taken earlier. "Okay – a bit of light thievery but that can't be related 'cause the fucker was already dead."

"How do you know?"

"Ollie said he was frozen solid. A Miller popsicle."

"That's horrible."

"Ollie? Ollie – Ollie what did he say? Ollie..."

Ollie wasn't sure what to do with the phone. He held it stupidly in front of him as though he'd been shot with a taser and the currents of high voltage electricity had seized his muscles together. He was even twitching slightly.

"Erm... He wasn't exactly pleased. Something about, 'fucker's a blackhole for my patience, dead and alive'. He's sending Jamie over."

"Oh Christ Ollie! Why'd you let him do that?"

"Why did I – it wasn't like he asked for my opinion! It was mostly shouting."

"It's going to be a Scottish festival of bollocking today," Terry muttered, dialling another number.

"Who are you calling this time?"

"Jamie. Obviously," Terry replied. "We can't just stand around oggling the corpse of a minister all morning. What if someone comes?"

Ollie blinked. "Body Terry, we agreed to call it a body after you made such a fuss – or has the shock worn off?"

"Bit. Yeah. He does look rather peaceful though, don't you think?"

Well actually no. Not really. Not at all.

"Glen – what are you doing?"

"There's something in his pocket," Glen muttered, bending down to pull the edge of Miller's coat open.

"I don't care if there's a squirrel in there!" Ollie grabbed onto Glen's arm.

Glen fought him off. "Don't grab at my arm! Holy!"

The only thing 'in' Miller's pocket was the hilt of a knife protruding out of his chest. Glen immediately slipped over on the ice, flailing backwards and taking Ollie with him – who he used as a human air bag. Terry lorded over them, already on the phone to Jamie.

"Not an accident then..." Glen trailed off.

"Of course it was an accident. Clearly he tripped, landed on a carving knife and then dragged himself into the alley."

"They're going to have to call an ambulance. Then the press. Then the police."

"In that order?" Sam asked.

Jamie had been called into assist and he wasn't pleased about it. Sam was trailing along behind him as he hung up from Terry and started bouncing about the corridors. He could feel a new vein popping out of his forehead from the stress of it all. He doubted it was particularly attractive. Not that it mattered. Obviously.

"Look," he waved her off irritably. "I simply don't have time to deal with this. The breakfast show is about to start and you're friend, ball-less Lord Robinson is about to follow up on his disastrous radio interview. When I told you to keep them on a leash I didn't mean strangle them so hard that their eyes bulge out like a goddamn goldfish. It was like watching a Japanese horror film."

"He's not mine," she protested. "You are babysitting him while Jeff is off sick."

"Exactly. Yours. Where the fuck is the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz?"

"Julius? In his office listening to abstract-indy-pop. You're going to have to wait if you want to see him... He's in a right mood." Sam added, when Jamie made to strut straight past her.

"Rules don' apply to me, darling."

"Yes, they sodding do," Sam snapped back, tossing a pen at him. It hit him between the shoulder blades, making him turn back on her. "Take a seat. Have a biscuit. I'll get you some tea." She added quickly. "Or I'll have to book two body bags I none morning. That's over our allocation."

"I don' want tea – I want Miller's cock on a plate, over-easy with some fucking French toast, if it's not too much trouble."

Sam flicked her gaze up from her notes. 'Behave!' she mouthed at him.

"See this?" he added, drawing an imaginary circle above his head. "It's a fucking halo and I polished it for you, my dear."

"You know what you sound like? A crack head muttering crazy shit to themselves. Do you want me to make you a sign 'the end is near' so that you can wander about DoSAC?"

Sam had a knack for making Jamie's blood boil – she was too good a sparring parter. Mind you, she'd learned from the best. There was far, far too much Tucker in her now. "Go fiddle with the angry Vulcan or whatever it is you two do in there all day. I've got shit on ice to sort out."

He vanished through a door and Sam couldn't be bothered to follow.