by Carmen Reid
‘No, no, no,’ she warned him. ‘That can’t happen. Is Mick around? Why don’t I talk to him?’
After just a few moments of talking to Mick, Jo realized she wouldn’t be able to manage this situation from London, she would have to join Aidan at the Townells’ home. Mick only wanted to talk about money: he was desperate to pit one paper against another and drive the price of the story up. This was going to be very messy, if she was to hang onto the twins now she’d have to negotiate payment in instalments, appeal to Spikey for more cash . . .
Once she’d hung up, Dr Taylor made his way back to the bench and sat down with the words: ‘There’s something else you should be asking me about.’
‘Oh.’ She was surprised. ‘And what’s that?’
‘Do you have a good understanding of the way in which vaccinations are made?’
‘Urn, not really. I’m sure you know much more,’ Jo replied.
‘I didn’t know much about it either,’ the doctor admitted, ‘but I’ve since found out that laboratories grow varieties of a disease: mutations, even genetic modifications. There’s a lot of playing about with seriously dangerous viruses and microbes going on. I don’t need to tell you that there is scope for harm to be done.’
‘Right.’ She wasn’t sure where this was going. What could she find out about it anyway? How microbes were manipulated . . . sounded like the kind of thing that required a chemistry degree to even begin to understand.
‘I went to a talk in Oxford recently,’ Dr Taylor went on. ‘Various doctors and experts who came from both sides of the vaccination fence. It was a fairly lively evening. And that’s when the manipulating and mutating of diseases came up. One of the speakers warned that in trying to fight old diseases, we might accidentally create new ones.’
‘Do you have a note of who was talking there that evening?’ Jo asked, hoping that a whole new trail might be opening up before her.
‘When I get back to the office, I’ll have a rake about and see if I can find that information,’ the doctor offered.
‘There’s one other thing I can look into for you,’ he went on.
‘Yes?’
‘I also know of a case where the parents believe their child has been seriously affected by Quintet. I might be allowed to pass those details on to you.’
Another child? Finally, Jo was beginning to feel that she might be getting somewhere.
By the time Jo arrived at the Townells’ home in Canterbury the crisis point was close.
As she pulled her car up in the road, she saw two cars parked ahead of her and Mick Townell at his garden gate, talking to a couple of reporters she recognized, while Aidan looked on helplessly from further up the garden path.
Jo got out of the car as quickly as she could and headed for the house. ‘Hello Mick, sorry about all this!’ she called out to him, with a big and extremely fake smile fixed to her face.
She gave a little smile and a curt nod to the rival reporter. One of them was health editor Meryl Payne – Jo already had experience of this woman’s persistence. Damn, damn, this would be a fight.
She opened the garden gate and didn’t allow Mick to think about whether or not he was going to let her in: ‘Let’s talk about this in private, inside,’ she said firmly and carried on towards the front door.
‘There’s no need to let her back in, Mr Townell,’ Meryl said immediately. ‘We’re more than happy to sign you up straight away. I’ve got a cheque in my bag.’
Jesus Christ!
‘Mick, please, can I just talk to you for five minutes in private?’ Jo urged him.
He followed her up the path, and with relief she saw that Meryl and her colleague were staying put at the gate – for the moment.
Mick showed her and Aidan into the sitting room. It wasn’t looking so tidy today. Samantha was there with the twins, who had emptied every single toy box and scattered Lego, bricks and other small plastic objects right across the floor.
‘Hello there,’ Samantha greeted her. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she added, looking properly sorry as well. Jo guessed that if it had been up to Samantha, the Mail would never have been involved.
‘OK, well, here I am, let’s not beat about the bush.’ Jo tried to keep smiling and sounding friendly. ‘What would convince you to do the story with us and not the Mail?’
‘A proper amount of money,’ was Mick’s immediate reply.
‘Right. Well, have you got a figure in mind?’ She dared to take a seat on the sofa beside Samantha in the hope that this would get Mick and Aidan to sit down as well and make them all feel a bit more calm.
‘The girl out there is talking about five figures,’ Mick said.
Ouch, ouch. Yes, there was no denying newspapers did pay for big stories and this was a good story, but . . . but. . . she doubted very much that it was worth that much to Jeff or Spikey.
On the phone, on the way down, she had been carefully briefed by Jeff as to exactly how high she could go. And how low they were hoping her to stay.
‘We’re very committed to this story,’ she began. ‘We’ve done the interviews, the pictures, you won’t have to do anything else. I’ve been interviewing doctors, I’ve found out about other families who have suffered like you, I’m planning a big report on this. I’m going to do a proper job and take it very seriously. I hope you’ll agree it’s not just about the money.’
Samantha was nodding at her, holding one of the twins on her lap, while the other drooled copiously over a cardboard book on the floor.
Mick puffed air into his cheeks and let it out slowly.
‘I am not going to be undersold here,’ he said finally. ‘We need the money . . . for the boys,’ he tacked on. ‘Obviously.’
‘We can pay you £5,000.’ Jo decided to name a figure which wasn’t quite at her limit, giving herself a little to play with.
She looked over at Aidan; the expression of surprise on his face that had been there since she’d arrived just widened.
‘That’s not enough,’ was Mick’s reply. ‘They’ve already told me at least £10,000.’
‘You might not get it. They might promise one thing and deliver quite another.’
‘Same with you,’ he said.
‘I have a contract in my bag.’ Jo took the file out. ‘We can sign it here and now.’
‘I’ve signed a contract with you already – for less money,’ he reminded her.
‘Tear that one up and we’ll start again,’ she replied.
There was a loud rapping on the front door.
Before Mick was even up from his seat, Jo was at the door, which she held open for just the time it took to say ‘Could you please go away?’ to Meryl and colleague.
There was an uneasy silence in the sitting room when she got back.
‘I think Samantha and I need to talk about this,’ Mick said. ‘Could you wait in the hall?’
This wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all. But she backed out of the room and once Aidan was out as well, she shut the door on the Townells.
‘We’ll give them a couple of minutes,’ Jo told him. ‘You OK?’
‘Bit rattled,’ he admitted.
She smiled at him: ‘At times like this, you can see why journalism and heavy drinking tend to go together.’
He nodded at her and let out a nervous sigh.
They heard the letterbox lifting and a folded piece of white A4 paper slid onto the doormat.
‘I think we better take a look at that,’ Jo said, crouching down to pick the page up.
She gave a whistle at the contents: ‘£10,000 is on the table from the Mail, and my top limit is £7,000.’
‘Oh dear,’ Aidan said.
‘So I don’t think they should see this.’ She scrunched up the paper and pushed it into her jacket pocket.
‘Is that ethical?’ he whispered.
‘Stealing letters? Erm . . . I don’t think so.’
The door opened.
‘Here we go again,’ she warned Aidan.
Jo was in the middle of what she thought was a stunningly persuasive speech about ‘the best paper for the story’ when she noticed that Mick and Samantha’s eyes had left her and moved to the window.
Jo turned to see Meryl holding up a large sheet of paper with the words: ‘£14,000 – Let us in’ written on it with marker pen.
‘Well, as you can see they’re being ridiculous now,’ Jo said. She went over to the window and snapped the blind down. Meryl’s response to this was to move to the next window.
Jo went over and pulled that blind down too, but this wasn’t good at all. This was when the messy fighting broke out and it all got very undignified. She wondered what Meryl would do next. . . bring out a megaphone?
‘They’re just being childish. You can’t take your story to people like this,’ Jo told the Townells, with a lot more confidence than she felt.
‘You’re right,’ Mick said. ‘I need to put a stop to this.’ He stood up, obviously intending to head for the door.
‘No, no.’ Jo stood in front of him. ‘I don’t think you should go and speak to them. That will just make it worse,’ she said.
‘I’m not going to be made to feel like a prisoner in my own home,’ he said and squared up to her.
‘No . . . no one’s suggesting . . . of course not. . . ’ she had a horrible feeling that Mick had never been on side from the start and this was her last chance.
‘I can do £7,000,’ she told him. ‘And no more.’
Mick gave her a nod, but then brushed past and went to the front door.
A conversation then went on there, which she couldn’t quite make out. She gave Aidan something of a resigned look.
Casting her eyes over the sitting room, Jo saw that Ellis had found her handbag. While the adults had been distracted by the tense negotiations and signs at the window, Ellis had been busy round the side of the armchair investigating the contents of the bag. Now pens, notepaper, tapes, tampons and God knows what else were all scattered in an arc around him.
‘Samantha!’ Jo warned, pointing to Ellis and his little trail of destruction.
‘Oh no!’ Samantha rushed over to the toddler and lifted him out of the mess. ‘Sorry,’ she said but it was drowned out by the screams bursting from Ellis.
Just as Jo began to scramble her belongings back into her bag, Mick came into the room.
‘I think it’s time for you to leave now,’ he said with finality and Jo had the feeling he wasn’t talking to his wife and children.
Behind Mick was Meryl, another reporter and a photographer.
‘Right, well.’ Jo took a final cast about the carpet; she seemed to have everything. She wouldn’t bother upsetting Ellis any more by wrestling the unwrapped super-Tampax from his hand.
‘Goodbye, Samantha,’ she managed, determined to leave with some shred of dignity intact. ‘Nice to meet you all.’
The smug look on Meryl’s face wasn’t helping. It would be hard to go past and resist smacking her in the mouth.
‘Right, Aidan, we’d better be off then.’
The walk across the living room, out of the door, along the corridor and to the front door felt burningly long and painful. Jo stumbled over the raised threshold and almost fell down the steps into the garden, prompting a pithy ‘Bugger!’ to escape her lips.
Only when she was back at her car did she face Aidan. He looked flushed and slightly traumatized.
‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured him. ‘It happens once in a while. It’s not the end of the world. The desk call it snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.’
‘But bloody hell,’ Aidan said, ‘they were so persistent. I think Meryl would have written the figure on her big backside and mooned it in the window if she’d thought it would help.’
Jo began to giggle, then found she couldn’t stop herself. She was just going to have to let this giggle fit continue. It was stress relief. Aidan began to laugh too until they were both leaning against her car, helpless. A woman walking by stared disapprovingly.
‘I’m going to have to phone Jeff,’ Jo said when the laughter had finally passed. ‘Better light a cigarette first. D’you want one?’ she offered.
Aidan shook his head.
‘Jeff? Jo here.’ She’d got through to him on the first attempt. ‘Total cock-up central. We’re out, the Mail is in. What more can I say? Yup . . . Aha . . . OK.’
And she hung up, which puzzled Aidan. He’d expected them both to have to go through a long-distance telling off.
‘Don’t we have to try again?’ he asked.
Jo just shook her head: ‘If you were on your own you’d have to. But I’ve been working here for five years, I’ve at least earned the right to say when it’s over. So . . . shall we go for a very quick drink before we hit the road?’
Back at the office, the approaching end-of-the-week chaos was beginning to build.
As soon as Jo walked through the heavy swing doors Jeff beckoned her over although the phone was clamped firmly between his head and shoulder.
Once he’d hung up, he swivelled on his chair to face her. Not for the first time in her working life, Jo was extremely glad that Jeff never got very angry. He certainly never shouted, well not in his newsroom anyway. Thank God. There were quite enough stories about violent and insane editors and news editors who would chew you up and spit you out for spelling mistakes, let alone losing scoops to rival newspapers.
‘So we’re fucked up the arse over the twins, then?’ was his appraisal of the Townell situation. She could see Mike, his number two, as well as Rod and even newsdesk secretary Binah (aka the office Bimbo) all suddenly attempting the ‘we’re extremely busy and not at all interested’ look as they stared at screens, flicked through notes, played with pencils but actually prepared to overhear every single word of this conversation.
‘Is this Aidan’s fault or yours?’
‘Mine. But I’m trying to look on it as a blessing,’ Jo said, instigating damage limitation at the earliest possible moment. ‘Look at it this way, if the Mail runs the Townell twins tomorrow or Saturday, they’ll just be whetting the appetite for more cases and further information and that’s what I’m aiming to give readers on Sunday.’
‘Have you got more cases?’
She mentally crossed her fingers behind her back as she replied: ‘I think I’ve got another English family. I’m waiting for a contact to call back. I’m also hopeful of getting some Canadian cases – the injection’s been over there longer, so more cases may have cropped up.’
‘Hmm,’ Jeff didn’t exactly sound ecstatic. ‘It’s not really setting the world on fire, is it? And Savannah? I’m only asking because it’s Thursday 3.20 p.m. and there’s nothing begging to be put on the front page in any of my news queues yet.’
‘Savannah. I have no fucking idea. Short of going round to Green Party headquarters and offering them my body, I’m not sure what else I can do on this,’ Jo said, although she was determined to shout at Tony over the phone as soon as she was back at her desk.
‘Right, well. . .’ Jeff smiled at this. ‘As you know, it’s not usually newsdesk policy to ask reporters to exchange sex for stories . . . huh, Rod?’
‘No.’ And Rod, who had once brought in a cracking exclusive that had unfortunately involved betraying the confidence of the girl he was sleeping with at the time, had the decency to blush just a little. But he was saved further humiliation when the phone next to him burst into life. Quickly, he snatched it up.
Back in her corner of the office, Jo found Dominique and Aidan working away industriously, Dominique on the phone, Aidan bashing at his computer in a concentrated way.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked him.
‘Not too bad.’ He looked up and attempted a smile that came off looking a bit too sorrowful. ‘It was a bit of a shock just how bloody persistent they were.’
She nodded. ‘Well, learn what you can from it, but sometimes you have to accept the fact that someone else is going to win – at least
for today. We’ll get the buggers tomorrow.’
Chapter Ten
Scientists have grown a ‘brain’ in a petri dish that can fly a simulated F-22 fighter airplane. It’s all part of a quest to build living computers.
National Geographic
Thursday: 4.50 p.m.
‘Some stories just write themselves,’ Jo announced to the newsdesk with something of a triumphant smile.
‘You got us another kid?’ Jeff asked.
‘Oh yes, a beautiful, blue-eyed one-year-old tot, apparently. Is that not music to a news editor’s ears? I’ve just come off the phone to the mother, I’ll send a photographer up straight away.’
‘Girl tot?’
‘No, boy,’ she replied seeing the slight droop of disappointment.
‘Shame, girl would have been perfect, nothing moves the reader like a baby girl,’ Jeff said.
‘Oh come on! This is a great story. He’s their second child, he was fine, normal, bright, happy and now he’s ruined, having four seizures a day unless he’s on medication.’
‘What’s his name?’ Rod asked.
‘Darren.’ She knew that wasn’t going to thrill them. ‘I know, I know, obviously there’s nothing we can do about that.’
‘Darren?!’ was Rod’s response. ‘And do they live in a high-rise?’
‘No they live in a semi in Milton Keynes.’
She could see the newsdesk calculations being made. The higher up the social scale, the greater the tragedy, was the basic rule of thumb. Because it was more credible if some white-collar worker from Surrey was complaining about a medical condition than if a teenage single mum from Skankville Towers was saying her baby wasn’t right, and by the way, how much money was she going to make from this?
‘And I’ve got a family in Canada as well,’ Jo added. ‘Full chat, and they’re going to email us over a happy family pic and, you know what, the Canadian child, Casey, his dad is a nurse. So a bit of medical establishment credibility for you.’
‘Good, that’s good, Jo,’ Jeff said and she paused for just a moment to enjoy the compliment.
‘And now for the bad news,’ she carried on quickly. ‘I can’t stay and write this stuff up now. I’ve got to get to my daughter’s birthday party, or else . . . Well, you know,’ she appealed to Jeff especially. He had teenage boys and as he was always in the office, he had probably missed birthdays, Christmases, school plays, almost all the important milestones in their lives, and Jo was determined not to do the same. Anyway, it was different: if Daddy couldn’t be there, that was one thing, but if Mummy couldn’t, that was childhood trauma. Punishable with months of enforced guilt and angry recriminations.