Up All Night

by Carmen Reid

  Abruptly Bella hung up and seconds later, Jo’s mobile began to ring.

  ‘Mobiles are harder to bug these days,’ Bella explained.

  ‘You don’t think we’re being a bit over the top?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Better safe than sorry.’

  Before Jo could ask what on earth she was talking about, Bella added: ‘But we should act sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Act? And just how can we act? Call the police?’

  ‘No, no no,’ Bella said. ‘We act by calling a virus security review at their headquarters. I could let them know that there’s a deadly new hard drive disease on the loose and that I need to get into their offices tomorrow night to update their systems and make sure they can be defended against it. You can obviously be my assistant and we’ll have a little snoop around the files while we’re there.’

  ‘Bella, I thought you didn’t want to get involved with stories on . . . er . . . this company?’

  ‘Well I didn’t, but they’ve bugged your computer!’

  ‘I don’t even know that yet.’

  ‘It’s pretty likely, though.’

  ‘Suppose so . . . but isn’t what you’re suggesting . . . well, isn’t it against the law?’

  ‘The law? I’m not sure the law has really caught up with the technology in this area. OK, we have to hang up now. We mustn’t be on for longer than forty seconds.’

  Jo snorted at this: ‘I think you’re being insanely paranoid.’

  ‘You’re the one whose computer’s bugged.’

  This was true, but Jo was now feeling far less worried about it: ‘Yeah, but according to you, it’s by some plucky teenager who’s got one eye on my files and the other on the Porn Channel, so I’m not going to fret.’

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow with details. You can be my temp, OK? Everyone has temps these days, even the Houses of Parliament. The fact that there isn’t more terrorism and industrial espionage carried out by temps is a mystery to me.’

  ‘Scaremonger!’ It was Don again, heckling. Bella was going to tell him all about this as soon as she put the phone down, Jo knew it.

  ‘Come with me tomorrow, we’ll have a rake about and see what we can dig up.’

  How could Jo refuse an offer like that? It would be Friday, Simon would have the girls, she’d be at work late . . . but then she could join Bella afterwards for a search of the Quintet files.

  ‘All right, you send me the where and when. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Now you get back to that nice husband of yours.’

  ‘Oh I will. Are you having an early night?’

  ‘I should have an early night,’ Jo admitted. ‘But instead I’m going to get changed and go out to meet my favourite chef.’

  ‘Really? You do realize that us old ladies need our beauty sleep,’ Bella teased.

  ‘Oh shut up, Bella!’ was Jo’s reply. Although it was after ten on a Thursday, with a mountain of shit to shovel tomorrow, she wanted to see him. She wanted to have just a little bit too much to drink and some distance from Simon, the birthday party and her worries about Annette.

  ‘Oh well then, rock on, girl,’ said Bella sounding more than a little jealous, which made Jo feel better.

  She always knew she was doing the right thing if Bella was jealous.

  Spiral-patterned, figure-flattering, knee-skimming: she loved the cheap dress she’d put on to go and meet Marcus. Just before she stepped into the nightclub he’d called from, Jo fluffed her hair and pressed her lips together to smooth out the latest application of lipstick. Even if it was the dark, ‘ageing’ one because she hadn’t had a chance to get the flattering pink Tilly had recommended.

  Jo bought a ticket at the door then paid to have her coat checked in. She hurried through a twisting flock-wallpapered corridor and came out into the packed, smoky space of the dance floor. She’d never been here before, but she could appreciate immediately that it was nice: relaxed and groovy. Lots of young bodies swaying together to something . . . hip-hoppy? Jazzy? Soul-ish? She was far too old to know.

  Slides were being projected onto the dancers and one of the walls. Images of trees, leaves, bubbles, sky, clouds made it feel all the more dreamy. She began to shuffle through the bodies, looking for Marcus.

  ‘Sorry . . . excuse me. . . ’ But people made way without the slightest murmur. They smiled, they waved, they said ‘hello there’, and let her past. This wasn’t London. This wasn’t a nightclub. She’d obviously landed in some bubble of happy hippie heaven. Or then again maybe everyone was on drugs.

  Marcus couldn’t be found, so she took sticky stairs up to the mezzanine that curved right around the dance floor. It was busy up there too, bodies packed into groups, both standing and seated in small booths. Jo made a circuit, not able to stop herself from noticing how young everyone was.

  Boys in jeans and tight T-shirts who had shaped their small wispy beards into soft chin quiffs, girls wearing the bare-shouldered batwing-sleeve tops and white high-heeled pumps which proved they hadn’t experienced the horrors of Eighties fashion the first time round.

  But down there, at the table near the small raised stage, were three grey-haired men drinking bottles of beer. She leaned over the balcony a little further to see if she could spot anyone else older than her. Look at the barman! She was old enough to be that boy’s mother. She felt a hand slide over her back and round her waist, so she turned, hoping it was Marcus and not someone she’d have to tick off for being so forward.

  ‘Hiya,’ Marcus said before kissing her hello.

  ‘This is fun,’ she told him, breaking off from the kiss. ‘But I can’t stay too late, you know.’

  ‘We better go dance then,’ was his reply. He put arms round her back, pulled her in and began to sway. ‘My friend Jed’s band is just about to come on.’

  ‘Oh, you’re friends of the band, are you? Were you on the list?’ she teased. ‘Did they have your name at the door? Did you get out of paying the 50p entry?’

  ‘If the doorman only charged you 50p, then he must have fancied the pants off you,’ Marcus teased back, offering her his bottle of beer.

  ‘Fancied me? The old granny, when there are so many gorgeous young things here!’

  ‘Stop that,’ he ordered. ‘You’re hardly the oldest person here.’

  ‘You’re right – I’ve spotted some grey-haired groovsters down there.’ She pointed and Marcus’s eyes followed her finger.

  ‘That’s Jed’s dad,’ he explained.

  ‘Jed’s dad!’ she groaned. ‘Is this a club you’ve brought me to, or a crèche?’

  ‘Stop it,’ he insisted. ‘I’m taking you downstairs for a drink and a dance – to cheer you up.’

  They went down hand in hand.

  Several bottles of beer later, she was pushed up close against him on the dance floor, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, her chin resting on his shoulder, his hands round her waist, their hips bumping together. Vaccinations, Simon, work problems . . . they’d all drifted from her mind. She’d joined the forever young people in the happy, hippie bubble. Her eyes were fixed on the ever-changing slide show on the wall, and her body seemed to be following the jazzed-up samba music just as easily as if she’d been brought up in Brazil. . . which was kind of ridiculous as she was a thirty-something London working mum whose idea of a good night out before Marcus was a lively and delicious dinner party, hosted by somebody else.

  Astrud Gilberto was singing something about needing someone to samba through life with her and Jo found herself humming along.

  She let her eyes close as she danced, savouring the realization that she hadn’t felt so free, so careless and vaguely irresponsible for a very long time.

  ‘You feel good,’ Marcus whispered against her ear. Any moment now she was going to take her chin from his shoulder and kiss him on the mouth. Brush against his lips, push her tongue into his mouth and taste him once again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A budding internet romance between a Jordanian man
and woman turned into an ugly public divorce when the couple found out that they were in fact man and wife.

  Reuters

  Friday: 8.50 a.m.

  Jo switched on her computer as usual, but today she half expected it to explode or shrivel into a pile of dust.

  But no, it ground lazily through the start-up procedure, just as normal. She wasn’t going to send any emails, obviously, not if they were being snooped on, but she’d decided she would check through the Inbox, in case something interesting had come in overnight.

  She scanned through it quickly: press releases, press releases, some notes from friends and colleagues. An email from her mother reminding her about lunch on Monday and hinting there was ‘something’ she wanted to talk about.

  Hmm . . . now what could that be? She’d Vacusacked Dad and packed him into the cupboard? She’d shrink-wrapped all her belongings and couldn’t find them? Or maybe a full-on lecture about why exhusbands should never be slapped? Yes, that was more likely, given the circumstances.

  Oh, something from the anonymous emailer. Jo’s curiosity wouldn’t allow her to pass that one by without taking a peek inside.

  She clicked it open to see another newspaper cutting. It was just a small paragraph from the Evening Standard, which had been scanned onto the page, about a generous donation six months ago by Wolff Meyer to the historical pathology archive of the London and Middlesex Hospital. There was no further explanation and no accompanying message, so Jo failed to see what this could mean.

  Historical pathology? Pathology of the past? Tissue samples, slices of infected brain . . . diseased corpses. It was a bit too early in the morning, especially after last night, to be thinking about this sort of thing. She closed it up and went on down her list. What did Green Tony want? Jo opened the email from him and read: Urgent, urgent! Give us a call as soon as yr in. Will try yr mobile 9am.

  The next name on the list hadn’t attracted her attention straight away but now that she was reading the sender’s name properly, she scrambled with the mouse to open it. An email from sav.tyler@ hotmail.com could only be a good thing, couldn’t it?

  Jo could hardly contain her rising excitement as she read it:

  Dear Jo Randall,

  I try to read your paper every Sunday and I always pay close attention to what you are writing about.

  You are always thorough, well-informed and don’t hesitate to tackle the difficult stories other papers shy away from.

  I know of your interest in an interview, I know I have taken a long time to make a decision, but I’ve decided I would like to speak to you. Tony will contact you to make the arrangements.

  I look forward to meeting you,

  Savannah Tyler.

  Jo resisted the temptation to throw both arms in the air and cheer. Finally, a break, a great big break! She punched Tony’s mobile number into her phone.

  ‘Hello, you know why I’m calling, don’t you?’ she said before he’d even got out his hello. She lived for moments like this. When all the other shit seemed to evaporate and something truly brilliant was about to come off. Spikey would wet himself with joy.

  ‘Hello there, Jo,’ Tony replied. ‘Looks like it’s all systems go, then.’

  ‘I’ve only got one question for you, Tony,’ she said. ‘When? And hopefully your answer is: “today”.’

  ‘Today we can do.’

  See? Sometimes it really was this simple, sometimes you didn’t have to beg and scrape and whinge and plead and twist twenty different arms all at the same time.

  ‘OK, is she at home? Am I going to do her at home in her lovely eco-house? Say yes and I will be there in the time it takes to U-turn my car and hightail it up to Oxford.’

  ‘Yes, you are to meet her at her home,’ Tony replied. ‘She’s there all day and is just waiting for me to call her back and tell her when you’ll be there.’

  ‘You are a wonderful, fabulous man who deserves to win hundreds of seats in the next election and I love you,’ Jo gushed. ‘OK, let’s go through the details . . . ’

  Jo told him the ground she planned to cover with Savannah and gave him the name of the photographer who would probably be used.

  Then Tony informed Jo of what Savannah wanted to talk about and was prepared to talk about. He also gave the warning: ‘Nothing too personal, Jo, I just want to make that clear again. She will really back off. She’s stormed out of telly interviews for that kind of thing, so she’ll slam the door on you. She is a very private person.’

  ‘Do we know anything about her personal life?’ Jo coaxed. ‘No partner? No kids? No immediate close family? Where was she born, brought up? What’s her past?’

  ‘The stuff on record is: no partner, no children. And no closet lesbianism, in case you’re wondering. Not that we would care about that, by the way.’

  ‘Neither would we,’ Jo offered, although they both knew this was a lie: the headline

  Greens’ Goddess is Gay

  popped immediately into her head.

  ‘Savannah was born and brought up in Argentina,’ Tony told Jo. ‘Her mother was Argentinian, her father British, worked over there. I can’t even tell you whether or not they’re still alive.’

  ‘Brothers? Sisters?’ Jo asked.

  ‘No details on that.’

  ‘Did she study in Britain?’

  ‘No. Schooled in Argentina. Went on to study chemistry at the Sorbonne. Her working life, mainly as a research chemist, has been divided between Britain and abroad. She now lectures at Oxford University part-time and is a party activist the rest of the time.’

  ‘Hmm. Any company names she’s worked for?’

  Tony gave an emphatic ‘no’ to this.

  ‘Look this is still an interview,’ Jo reminded him. ‘Not a party political broadcast. She’s going to have to give us something.’

  Tony uttered a deep sigh.

  ‘Jo, just go and meet her,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to interfere any more. You’re both big girls, perfectly capable of looking after yourselves and getting what you want from this. So, maybe you should just sort things out between yourselves. She’ll soon tell you which questions she doesn’t want to answer and you’re far too charming to be flung out of the door, aren’t you?’

  ‘Charming? Moi?’ was Jo’s smiled reply to this. ‘OK. Stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine. We’ll get on like a house on fire, I bet you. I’m going to send the photographer round right now, so we’re not disturbed later . . . and, well, what can I say?’

  ‘Tony, I owe you a debt of undying gratitude?’ he answered.

  ‘Tony, I owe you a debt of undying gratitude,’ she repeated. ‘Or at the very least, a fine dinner on my expense account.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  They said their goodbyes and Jo hung up.

  ‘What’s all this?’ Jeff was hovering at her elbow. ‘Photographers?’ he asked. ‘Being undisturbed? Aren’t you aware your big story of the week is being scuppered as we speak?’

  ‘I am fully aware of that. . . Good morning to you too, Jeff. But right now, I’ve no idea where to take vaccinations next. I’m desperate for a flash of inspiration there. But. . .’ She swivelled her chair round to face him, taking an appreciative glance at the much higher than usual boots she was wearing under her boring old work suit. It was probably a mistake as, soon as the heels went on, she could guarantee she would get a job at the top of a mountain – in fact that was probably where Savannah lived . . . somewhere miles above sea level, inaccessible by car or suede high heels.

  ‘But,’ she repeated to Jeff, ‘I didn’t think I’d need to ask you whether or not to arrange a photo to go with our exclusive Savannah Tyler interview.’

  ‘Really?’ This was said quietly, eyebrows raised as Jeff pulled up a chair and drew it close.

  Their knees bumped together for a moment, but they knew each other well enough not to have to apologize for that, he just moved slightly to the side. His large notepad came down on her desk, he pulled
his pen from his shirt pocket and began to take notes. He was the only man she knew who could make writing look macho. He used a fat silver biro, had chunky square hands and pressed down hard.

  ‘She’s expecting me at her home just as soon as I can get there,’ Jo said, finding it hard to rein her enthusiasm in. ‘I’ll send the snapper we use in Oxford to take pictures while I’m on my way, so the whole thing should be wrapped up by early afternoon.’

  ‘Good. This is really good, Jo. That’ll be one nice thing to talk about at conference. Meanwhile everything else is going belly up.’

  ‘Where are we going to leave the vaccination story?’ she wanted to know.

  ‘You tell me. What have we got, exactly? Don’t vaccinate your children and they might die in this whooping cough outbreak – do vaccinate your children and they might get brain damage. We need something clearer than that.’

  ‘Slight hole in your version,’ she reminded him. ‘Lots of the children with whooping cough were vaccinated. So where does that put us? We can’t just drop stories because they’re too complicated. By the way, take a look at this.’ She clicked onto her email and scanned down to the anonymous message.

  ‘I thought you weren’t using your computer any more. In fact I thought you had to go and make a report about all this to the tech department.’

  ‘Ah yes, well I’m bit busy today and tomorrow. It’ll have to wait till Tuesday. Anyway, I’m just looking at my email, I’m not sending any.’

  ‘So what’s that all about?’ He looked at the note: ‘Pathology department benefactors?’

  ‘Why would a pharmaceutical company be interested in a pathology lab?’

  ‘Maybe they were just being charitable,’ Jeff ventured.

  ‘Charitable!? This lot? Who, by the way, are my number one computer bugging suspects.’ Jeff raised his eyebrows at that, but Jo continued, ‘There’s something going on there. Are they checking up on samples from ill people? Are they monitoring samples? Are they trying to find out what people die of? There must be some sort of research going on. Is there anyone we know who can make some calls?’