Naked Hero - The Journey Away

done. Though please – don’t blame him for what happened here tonight. It’s a team effort. But if you want to blame someone for putting a dampener on tomorrow’s celebrations, then it should be that man over there,” he added, pointing towards his supporters’ box. “Jim Murdoch - blame him for this win. He deserves it.”
    The television cameras switched to the area where Lewis had pointed to, and centred on the beaming face of Jim Murdoch where a happy tear was forming in the corner of his eye. But not everyone viewing at home noticed. It was another face, off centre of camera, that many people were looking at, remembering the times and places they had seen it before. There were plenty of people who recognised it, and many were all too happy to share their recollections with the press over the coming days. One in particular, a typical Australian, gave a Herald reporter exactly the twist he had been waiting for ever since he had looked at the delight that was www.leeporter.com.
    ***
    Barry Simmons listened to this latest snippet concerning Lee Porter with increasing suspicion. As editor of the Daily Herald, his main responsibility was to shift copies, and this would certainly help him do that tomorrow. But he didn’t want to make a fool of himself, or have a lawsuit on his hands, so he was guarded about the story that seemed to be unfolding all too easily. A decision had to be made quickly though if they were going to run with this in the morning edition. They would go with a story – how could they not given what had been uncovered - but how far should they go?
    “Okay, let’s just run through the facts again,” he said to the assembled team of reporters. “This Porter guy was seen going into Macleod’s house before the match. We have the pictures. No worries. He leaves two hours later, after Macleod, and goes to the match with the coach’s wife, all very cosy. When he arrives with her in the stadium, Scott Taylor tells us who he is, very convenient. We check him out, and bingo, there he is with his bare backside spread all over the internet, not exactly subtle. Not exactly the sort of guy you’d expect Macleod to be hanging out with, despite what we might print about him. I can’t see him being that stupid, but perhaps he is. Macleod then beats our man, fair and square. Does a nice PR job at the end, and then draws our attention to the box where Porter is sitting, not directly, but enough for him to be spotted by the viewers close up. Now we get this call, Porter has been playing away, in a Sydney toilet for God’s sake, on the day we slaughtered Macleod on the back pages and tried to incite a riot. It stinks! If we run with all of this on Australia Day of all days, it’s going to taste of sour grapes.”
    “The Recorder will run with it, you can bet on it,” said the reporter who had taken the call.
    “Not with the last part. He said he was giving us an exclusive, didn’t he?”
    “Yep, that’s the deal.”
    “It could be a set up,” continued Barry with his musing. “Macleod could be playing a clever game with us here, drawing attention away from someone else. It will work as well. But if we go with this last part - it might make him look silly, but it would get him a lot of sympathy, and I don’t want to give him that. I’ll call the guy and tell him we’ll publish, but not tomorrow. There’s more than enough to run with tomorrow. I want a day to think this through, and for you to get the story straight. What if it’s a hoax, anyway? We need to check it out and run it past the lawyers. Meet him tomorrow, and get down to that gym. Let’s see how Macleod responds to what’s printed first, and then I’ll decide. Keep it factual, just report on what was seen. The pictures will sell the story for us. If Macleod wants to look a fool, then let him, but I don’t think he’s bothered about what we print. I think there’s another story, one that will bother him, and I want it flushed out.”
    “This could be it. If he’s seeing this Porter guy, then he’d be gutted to find out he’s screwing around.”
    “Possibly! Who knows what fairies think? And don’t tell me if any of you know! Let’s get this story printed, then I want them all checked out: you do the fairy from the dunny, and the rest of you get down to Melbourne. I want the story, the real story. Find out who it is: Lee Porter… or Scott Taylor.”
    ***
    In the Rod Laver Arena, the crowd were starting to leave ,