The other people working for Lennox Mark are a motley crew at various stages of disillusionment and self-loathing. 28-year-old Rachel Pearl, for example, a very intellectual and excellently educated young woman, did not mind, when she was still at university, becoming the lover of a much older journalist and getting a well-paid job through his connections. Now, eight years later, she realises that for almost a decade she has been no more than that man's whore, living in an expensive flat paid for from his expense account and providing him with a beautiful body whenever he feels the lust to have her rather than his wife or a prostitute. When, on the death of her former schoolmate and socialite Kitty Chell, Rachel realises the sheer amount of manipulation going on in the media—Kitty died of natural causes in the first stages of pregnancy, but "The Daily Legion" turns it into a scandalous drug-related death—she quits both her job and her lover and benefactor. Unable, as an atheist, to turn to God or an official church for consolation or advice, she is nevertheless drawn towards Father Vivyan, Kitty's uncle.