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family after family emerged from court, almost all in tears, all saying they had lost and would be evicted within a month. By the end of the day, even the judge had expressed sympathy with the people brought before her, but had also made it very clearthat the law was quite straightforward. If the landlord wanted the families out, then out they had to go.
    The most powerful interview was with a man called Andrew Hicks. His wife stood beside him, her face hidden behind her hands, her muffled sobbing audible. He hugged her closeand told the reporter, “We’ve lived in that house for nine years. We moved there to care for my mum, who’s been getting more and more frail. She’s just over the road. We’ve got friends all along the street. We love it. We were going to start our own family there, when the time was right. And now he’s thrown us out for no better reason than that he’s worried we might make him splash out a few hundred quid on some decorating.” Hicks’s voice broke, before he rallied and finished with a choking, “The man’s got no heart. Bray’s a bastard, pure and simple.”
    The next story came from the following night. There were more protests at court, but this time the banners had changed. Andrew Hicks’ emotive motif had found resonance. All read. “Bray the Bastard”. But the outcome of the day remained a familiar one. Another twenty families facing eviction.
    There was no interview with Bray in either report. He’d refused to speak to any of the media. The best Wessex Tonight had managed was a snatched shot of him disappearing into a taxi. But even in that, Bray managed to convey his feelings. Behind his back, he flicked a V sign at the camera.
    Dan tapped the desk in mock applause. The man was a pantomime villain. All he needed was a black cape, a fiendish cackle and a damsel in distress to tie to a railway line and the image was complete.
    There was another report, dating from a few months later, when Bray evicted yet another swath of tenants from more of his houses. This time an MP got involved, pleading with the government for a change in the law. But the wheels of democracy never grind fast, if ever they grind at all, and the plea was briefly pontificated upon before being entirely ignored.
    A year later came another story, and this time it was edged with new fury. Bray suffered days of protests outside his offices before the issue quietened. Some of the demonstrators were positively frothing and near-apoplectic. It was, Dan thought, the businessman’s own daft miscalculation. This time, Bray had picked not on mere expendable humans, but instead, defenceless animals, and, even worse, that bastion of English society, most treasured and untouchable of pets, the domestic feline.
    The Wessex Home for Unwanted Cats was in financial trouble and in desperate need of a saviour. A fine Georgian building, just outside the city centre, it could hardly have been more attractive to a property developer. Word went round that Bray was in talks about its future. But this rumour had a most unexpected twist; that on this occasion the secretive businessman was motivated not by money but emotion. He was, it was said, a cat man himself; he had a couple of much favoured felines of his own.
    The future was purring happily.
    But as so often with rumours, they were on the hopelessly wrong side of utterly misguided.
    Bray bought the home, gave the staff and their beloved felines notice to quit, and with that brought down upon himself all the vitriol and venom of this cat-loving nation. It was only a quadrupling of the three-month period of notice which finally eased the protests at his doors.
    Dan got up and wandered down to the canteen to get himself a coffee. He noticed he was starting to like Edward Bray. If not personally pleasant, then the man was a journalist’s dream. He had as much regard for public opinion as a merchant banker, sailing away from a