by Bourne, Sam
‘No, it was not. I’d never seen him before.’
‘Not once? Never ever?’
Why it should be that phrase in particular that did it, Natasha couldn’t say. But the nursery rhyme condescension of those two words – never ever – somehow made her snap back into herself. Her professional self.
‘I know what you’re implying here and it’s completely unacceptable. I’ve been the victim of a horrific crime. I was defending myself from attack.’
It was Allen who replied. ‘No one’s implying anything, Ms Winthrop. Not at all.’
‘Oh no? By suggesting I might have known my—’
‘Not suggesting,’ he said. ‘Asking.’
‘Even when I’ve already told you several times, exactly—’
‘We’re just trying to be absolutely sure of the facts. To go through every detail.’
Then, as an aside, Chester added with a curl of sarcasm: ‘Following the rules and procedures.’
There was silence then, as she absorbed what this woman had said and as, perhaps, Allen did the same. Natasha understood. She looked back at Chester.
‘Is there some kind of problem here?’
‘None at all.’
‘Is this about my professional work?’
‘Let’s get back to last night. You said—’
‘Is that it? Is this about the committee? Or are you expressing resentment of my past involvement in complaints against the police? Is that what this is about?’
‘You said the assailant was a man you’d never—’
‘Hold on. I think we ought to get this cleared up. Just because I have represented people who were mistreated by the—’
‘Ms Winthrop.’ It was Allen, stepping in. ‘Please. Let me reassure you. My colleague and I are determined to do the most thorough job we can. She meant nothing else. Just that we are going to do everything properly and thoroughly.’
And with that, Natasha was sure she saw him shoot a look, more of a glare really, at the senior officer: part scolding, part imploring. Translated it would have read: I thought we talked about this.
There was silence for a moment. Allen understood, even if Chester did not, that they were dealing with an attorney who did not tend to take prisoners. They could not risk her claiming there was so much as a hint of prejudice in their handling of her case.
But Natasha could see: she was no fool, this Chester. All the transcript would show was a commitment to ‘following the rules and procedures’. Who could object to that? Her sarcasm would remain silent and unseen on the page.
The door opened and a young woman, a uniformed police officer, came in, passing a note to Chester. The detective read it, then passed it to Allen. The young woman left, saying nothing.
With no change in her expression, Chester spoke again. ‘Can I go back to this business about the door?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘We’ll obviously have forensics take a thorough look, but at first glance – to the naked eye – there’s no sign of forced entry.’
‘I don’t know how—’
‘Which is fine. Like I say, a hundred ways to catch a turtle, if you know what you’re doing. Which this man might, for all we know.’
‘Look, I’ve—’
‘But the thing is, there’s the neighbours. As I’ve said. They say – well, one of them says anyway – that they’re pretty sure they saw the door open at around midnight last night. Man was taking the garbage out, apparently. Likes his routine, he says. Does it every Sunday night at around the same time: midnight. Apparently. So he steps out and sees a man at the entrance to your place, at the top of the stoop. Sees him go in, door opening for him.’
‘The door opening for him? I don’t understand. How would—’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. It can look like that. You jimmy a door, if you’re a pro, it can look like you’re just turning a key. Skilled, these guys.’
‘Very skilled.’ It was Allen. His shoulders were down. He looked relieved that things were back on track, that Chester was behaving herself.
‘I see.’
‘No, that’s not what worries me,’ Chester resumed. ‘It’s more this.’ She tapped on the piece of paper on the table in front of her, using her forefinger. The sheet was face down, just in case Natasha Winthrop was one of those people who could read a document upside down. Which she was.
‘What is that?’
‘This is a report on the CCTV covering your home and a few others. Expensive neighbourhood, private security; well covered by cameras. We don’t have all the pictures in yet. But this is what we got from the security firm this morning.’
‘And what does it say?’
‘It says that the footage shows a male, face obscured by a ski mask or similar, entering your premises at eleven fifty-nine last night. It shows that he entered by the front door. No apparent use of force.’
‘Apparent being the key word,’ said Natasha.
‘Yup. Absolutely right. Apparent. But it also says that the CCTV image shows what appears to be the outline of a person opening the door. It’s indistinct, but the report is quite clear. There seems to be someone letting this man in. And, given what you’ve told us, Ms Winthrop, the only person that could possibly be is you.’
Chapter 6
Washington, DC
The flaw with these crack-of-dawn Washington meetings, Maggie reflected, not for the first time, was: what were you meant to do afterwards? Fine, if you had a regular job. Then you simply went to your office as if nothing had happened, pitching up no later than you would on a regular day. Sometimes earlier, in fact; at least in Maggie’s case. Even after all these years in DC, she was still not used to the world of breakfast meetings at 6.30am, the world of coming off an overnight flight and heading straight into the office, the world of being at your desk soon after dawn – all of it driven by a work ethic so puritanical it would have shamed the witchburners of Salem. None of it made any sense to Maggie. On the few occasions when she had to surrender, and allow the incursion of an appointment into what should have been her sleeping hours, she had arrived at work afterwards feeling uncharacteristically virtuous. Look who’s at their desk before nine: how about that?
But these days, it was odd. She was no longer on anyone’s books, not expected anywhere. So after that session with Senator Tom Harrison, she was released back into the wild. True, she’d hardly had her feet up since leaving the White House, drawn into defusing serial crises here, there and everywhere, but for now there was no clock she was meant to punch, no place she was meant to be. Uri was not around. Lord knows they’d had their false starts over the years, including a long spell apart, but this was not one of those: instead her boyfriend was in India, shooting the documentary that had consumed him for months. He would be away for another fortnight. Which meant she was, for now, living a life she had barely known in this city: a single woman in Washington, whose time was her own.
In celebration of the fact, she decided to give herself a rare treat and sit down for a delayed breakfast at the Tabard Inn on 17th and N. After the weirdness of that meeting with Harrison, the dark interiors and English country hotel vibe felt like a necessary balm.
She found a corner table and, despite a vague sense that she should keep it analogue by reading the abandoned copy of the Washington Post on her table, habit made her pull out her phone.
She barely looked at the emails, including a follow-up from her contact in Harrison’s office:
Hey, that went GREAT! Huge enthusiasm at this end. Lots of big hires being rolled out today and tomorrow (including a very cool get). Know the senator psyched to announce your name in that first wave. Good for us (momentum, buzz) and good for you – founder-member, present-at-the-creation. Say yes and we’ll fix everything ASAP. Say yes!
Maggie swiped the email app away and went straight to Twitter. The first tweet she saw p
uzzled her. It was from a journalist who was a talking head regular on cable TV:
Am hearing attorney Natasha Winthrop was violently attacked last night – and killed her attacker. More details later.
That had already been retweeted nine hundred and twenty-three times by the time Maggie saw it, even though it had been up less than twenty minutes. Often the retweets came with a single word of mini-commentary – Whoa or Jesus – and, in one case, the emoji for a pair of eyes in gawp mode.
Maggie scrolled through to see that the story was spreading fast. A Saturday Night Live star had posted it with the message:
Always knew Winthrop was badass.
In reply, another comedian, a woman whose public radio spots had spun off into a hugely successful podcast, wrote:
That’s the kind of lawyer *I* want.
Maggie now put ‘Winthrop’ in the search window and the screen filled up. The tweets seemed to be coming in every second, more and more of them. New tweets available.
There was one from CNN:
DC Police confirm lawyer Natasha Winthrop violently attacked in her home last night – apparently killing her assailant.
That triggered a new wave, bigger than the first. Besides the initial reaction of shock – OMG was a concise favourite – there was the occasional new thought. A former congressman, on the left of the Democratic Party, tweeted:
Winthrop involved in some of the most controversial terror cases of the last three years. Possible link?
Next was a tweet from a legal advocacy group that had represented terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. They’d been a regular Fox News target, branded a glorified jihadist front. Winthrop had worked with them on a couple of cases. The tweet featured a picture on the steps of DC Federal Court, a group whose hands were linked and held aloft, apparently celebrating a ruling in their favour. Winthrop was second from the left, beaming.
#Solidarity with Natasha Winthrop, fighter for justice
And now, inevitably, came the Twitter scolding and guilt-tripping. A female blogger for Slate said:
Can I remind people that we are talking here about a woman who has just undergone a violent assault and a terrible trauma?
Next came the ombudsman of a high-minded newspaper:
A warning that this case could come to trial. The more journalists and others speculate, the harder it will be to ensure that trial will be fair.
But the one that seemed to have caught fire, its retweet numbers clicking upward in real time, as Maggie watched, was from a name she did not immediately recognize.
Natasha Winthrop fought back. #Heroine
The profile picture didn’t help: it was a book jacket. Maggie clicked on it and read the one-line bio with surprise:
Carmelita Tang is a Political Analyst for Fox & Friends. Her book – You Just Don’t Get It! – is out now #TakeBackOurCountry
Now Maggie scrolled through the retweets and saw that almost all of them were from the same crowd: avowed supporters of the incumbent president, whose Twitter handles featured strings of emojis and initials to signal their devotion. Several included the image of a gun, to telegraph their belief in the Second Amendment. More than a few had replied to Tang’s original message, adding their own endorsement for Winthrop’s action, sometimes accompanied with a barbed attack on Winthrop herself:
Now even the libtards get it. #2A
Or:
Like we always said, a conservative is just a liberal who’s been mugged. Or violently attacked in their own home. #2A
Or:
*Now* do you get it?
That, Maggie marvelled, was quite an achievement. The free-Guantanamo and NRA crowds on the same side? That didn’t happen often. Winthrop had managed to unite Fox News and NPR, gun nuts and feminists, which in a country fighting a near-constant culture war took some doing. Maggie thought back to that bit of video that had been in circulation in the hours before this story broke, and the tweet that came with it:
If our politics is broken, and it is, then maybe we need to look beyond conventional politics and politicians. Maybe it’s time to pick someone fresh and untainted. Someone who can inspire, and is a real human being. Someone like Natasha Winthrop.
Chapter 7
Washington, DC
Greg Carter fiddled with the camera – actually a phone – one last time, trying to get it straight on the tripod. Once again, he silently cursed the amateurishness of this arrangement. If the whole point was to simulate the conditions of a TV debate, then surely that should mean simulating the conditions of a TV studio – lights, big bulky cameras, floor managers, the works. This campaign could surely afford it. But Doug Teller, the campaign manager, had been insistent. Full debate prep was coming in a few weeks; until then, the focus was on content, working up lines and themes. For that, two lecterns and an iPhone were sufficient.
That was especially true for this session, hastily arranged and at Greg’s suggestion. The plan was to wargame what was still a hypothetical scenario at this stage: the addition of a novice and entirely untested rival to the field at the very last moment, just days before the deadline for contenders formally to register their candidacy. Greg had wanted to do it for weeks, as soon as that appearance at the hearings had started generating buzz. Doug hadn’t disagreed exactly, but it hadn’t been a priority. Which was why this overnight development in Georgetown was not wholly unwelcome, at least to Greg. It had signalled to both Doug Teller and the candidate himself that their Political Director was no slouch, that Greg Carter’s instincts might be worth heeding right away, rather than waiting until they were vindicated by events. Greg had seized on the opening – who knew how long it would last? – and proposed they do the session immediately. Which meant doing it right here, in one of the small meeting rooms in the DC office, the circular table pushed into a corner to make room for the two makeshift podiums.
A moment later and Tom Harrison was in the room, entourage in tow, a cellphone clamped to his ear.
‘—you betcha.’ A pause. ‘I would love that. You know how much Betsy and I love that ranch of yours. Let me get my people to look at the schedule. And Ron? I can’t thank you enough for your generosity. I mean it. I won’t forget it – and nor will the American people.’ The phone went back inside the breast pocket, Harrison’s smile disappearing along with it. The candidate then fixed his gaze on Carter.
‘All right, Greg. You got me for about ten minutes.’
‘OK. Great. The plan is to game out a match-up against—’
‘Winthrop. I know that. How do you want to do it?’
‘I thought I’d be the moderator and I’ve asked Ellen to play Natasha Winthrop.’ Ellen Stone had only just walked in the room, a trailing member of the retinue that was all but glued to the candidate.
‘Greg, isn’t it you who normally plays the opponent?’
‘I have done so far, that’s true. But I’m not sure an African-American male is going to get you in the zone for facing off against a thirty-something white woman.’
‘I don’t know, Greg, you’re a pretty good actor.’ Despite a flash of those whitened teeth, the line conveyed exasperation rather than friendliness. The senator didn’t like these drills, that much was obvious, at least to Greg. He wasn’t sure Doug had picked up the signals.
A moment later Harrison had taken his place behind the lectern. ‘OK, shoot.’
Greg sat himself on a hard, plastic chair equidistant between the two ‘candidates’, only one of them fully play-acting. The image on the phone would be of his back forming the apex of a triangle, just as it would be on TV. Although, of course, if Winthrop were to enter the race, she would be one of nearly a dozen contenders, lined up like gameshow contestants. Still, unrealistic as it might be, the one-on-one, mano-a-mano format suited Greg’s purposes better. It would be more clarifying.
He straightened his papers and cleared hi
s throat. In his peripheral vision, he saw Doug Teller let himself into the room and take up a position at the back, joining about half a dozen aides, strategists and the resident pollster.
‘If I could start with you, Senator Harrison. You’ll have seen in the news that Natasha Winthrop was forced to defend herself from an attacker in her own home. What will you do to fight crime in this country?’
Harrison flashed a smile warmly towards Ellen.
‘No smiling: she was raped.’ It was Doug, heckling from the back. Harrison reshaped his face into a look of anguished concern.
‘Can I begin by saying how proud I am to be sharing a stage alongside such a brave young woman.’
‘Patronizing.’ Doug again.
‘Let me begin by welcoming Natasha Winthrop to this debate stage and indeed to this race. Our democratic process is stronger when more people step up and take part.’
No interruption from Doug, which everyone in the room, Harrison included, took as endorsement. The candidate went on.
‘Like many Americans, I was horrified when I learned what happened to Miss Winthrop.’
‘Miss? What is this, 1950?’ Doug’s silence had lasted less than fifteen seconds.
‘Actually, I think that’s quite good.’ It was the pollster, like Doug a battle-hardened Washington operative in his mid-fifties – and therefore one of the few who dared talk back to him. ‘Older voters, south, Midwest – sounds respectful. And subtly reminds everyone she isn’t married.’
‘Hmm. We’ll test it. Go with “Natasha” for now, Senator. Sounds elite. Kind of foreign.’
Harrison cleared his throat and re-set himself. ‘What happened to Natasha shouldn’t be happening in America. Americans should be safe in their own homes.’ He turned away from Greg to face Ellen. ‘And what you did was tough. It was brave. It took courage. Heck, I’d have a good mind to make you Secretary of Defense.’
‘I’m not running to be Secretary of Defense, Senator Harrison. I’m running to be President of the United States.’ Ellen looked as surprised by her rejoinder as everyone else in the room.