The Yacht Party

by Perry, Tasmina

  ‘We do this together,’ continued Eduardo from the stage. ‘Because it is the only way it can work. Working alone in our own little corners, the information is fractured and scattered, but come together and we make the picture whole. And that’s what we stand for: telling the whole story, shining a spotlight into the darkness, making that which is hidden seen.’

  He paused to look around the room, to make eye contact.

  ‘We work together, because the stakes are too high to do anything else. This week we have seen just how high, with the tragic loss of one of our own.’

  Eduardo’s voice cracked on the final word and he looked down, composing himself, hiding his vulnerability. When he looked back towards the room, he raised his coffee mug. ‘So here’s to the work we have done and all the work we will do. Because we have to. Sandrine Legard. This conference is for you.’

  As the crowd erupted into applause, Lara felt the depth of emotion for Sandrine in the room. It was a lovely thing and she knew her friend would have been pleased by that too.

  The mood shifted into something more business-like as Stefan stood up to outline the activities for the morning: there was a lecture by a professor from the LSE and a panel discussion on interview technique. Lara chose a Q&A on global politics ‘through a spy’s eyes’. About twenty delegates crammed into a side room where a bald man with wire-rimmed glasses was already deep in discussion with a woman with wild hair, debating whether the paranoia of Hollywood and spy fiction was real. The discussion’s title sounded lightweight, but Lara found it fascinating. Lara had been to a number of these things at literary festivals and they were usually either horribly dry or annoyingly thin. This however had the air of truth and authority about it, with the speakers beginning sentences with ‘the Iranian ambassador told me…’ or ‘I was talking to the deputy director of the CIA…’. This was why Lara had always been attracted to this profession: she wanted to see what was really happening behind the news.

  As the talk finished, everyone filed out of the room. Lara had already spoken to a handful of Le Caché journalists, dropping in Sandrine’s name where she could, hoping she could tease information out of them, but few people seemed to know her well. For all the talk of collaboration, it seemed that the journalists only shared their work through servers and the occasional conference call.

  Eduardo was standing at the door, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries like a vicar passing blessings to his congregation, which Lara supposed he was. Lara was bracing herself for an awkward encounter when Eduardo gave her a wry smile.

  ‘You came,’ he said simply.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So, could I take you to lunch?’ he asked.

  ‘Now?’ she said glancing at her watch. It wasn’t even noon, but Lara realised she was hungry. Since Sandrine’s death she had barely eaten anything.

  ‘Sure.’

  They went out onto the street. It was working up to be a warm day and Lara knew she was going to be overdressed in a black trouser suit and white shirt. She took off her jacket as they walked.

  ‘Your welcome address,’ said Lara. ‘They were nice words you said about Sandrine. I’m glad you did it.’

  ‘Sandrine would have loved it here,’ said Eduardo. ‘You know she did the keynote speech at last year’s conference?’

  Lara hadn’t known but she could certainly imagine her standing up on that stage, loving the atmosphere, loving being at the centre of all that. Lara glanced across at Eduardo.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry about Saturday. I was upset, emotional, but I shouldn’t have been so bloody rude.’

  Eduardo nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry too. As first meetings go, I’m not sure it was what Sandrine had in mind.’

  ‘No. Probably not,’ said Lara sadly.

  They headed away from the rush of the main road, weaving into streets of identical whitewashed terraces. ‘The pub’s just down here,’ said Eduardo. ‘It’s a bit of a walk, but it does serve a very decent moules frites.’

  ‘Could be my the first of the day,’ smiled Lara.

  ‘You like moules frites?’ he said with a look of confusion.

  ‘Yes. No, I meant I’m heading to Paris this afternoon. I’m checking on Sandrine’s flat for Jean and Marion.’

  ‘The flat?’

  A look of concern crossed Eduardo’s face, then it was gone.

  ‘Stefan’s going to join us at the pub, I hope you don’t mind?’

  Before Lara could respond, Eduardo strode ahead and she had to trot to keep up.

  ‘So Stefan’s your right-hand man?’ she said.

  ‘He was the first journalist I invited to join Le Caché. I’d say he was more a co-founder rather than a deputy.’

  ‘He’s Dutch, right? So what brings the conference to London, rather than Holland or Spain?’

  ‘Why is the City of London the number one global financial hub rather than Frankfurt or New York?’ he said glancing across. ‘It’s because it’s in the middle of the time zones and because English is the universal language and our journalists come from Sydney and San Francisco. It would have been easier for me to have headquarters in Madrid, but not for anyone else. Which is why we’re moving the main Le Caché office to London, Shoreditch. I’m relocating here too.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ said Lara. ‘That’s exciting.’

  ‘Sandrine was excited about it too.’ He said it with a sad smile.

  Lara stopped.

  ‘Sandrine was going to move to London?’

  ‘We talked about it. But you know Sandrine. I’m not sure that was the level of commitment she was comfortable with.’

  Over the years, many men had fallen in love with Sandrine but all of them, with the exception of Patric, had been very much one-sided affairs. She wondered if Eduardo and Sandrine’s had been that way too. Perhaps he didn’t even know.

  Inside the pub, they ordered the moules then joined Stefan at a corner table.

  ‘So what did you think of this morning? Are you going to join us?’ Lara laughed at Stefan’s bluntness. The truth was, Lara had enjoyed herself. Despite going in as a sceptic, she had loved the buzz of the conference and the excitement of being surrounded by like-minded people.

  Stefan and Eduardo were passionate, smart and driven but handsome and charming too. It was a combination that took people places. She had seen the same thing happen with Alex Ford; she had known Alex would make it to the very top the very first day they had met.

  ‘Look, this is all very flattering,’ said Lara. ‘But I’m not here to talk about joining Le Caché. I’m here to talk about Sandrine. She was going to discuss a new story she was working on at the conference.’

  Eduardo nodded. ‘That’s right. But all I know is that there was a link to Jonathon Meyer, the financier who died recently.’

  ‘Did you look into it?’

  ‘A little. The problem is that Meyer’s world is – was – so secretive. He lived in Monaco, had a fund for ultra-high-net worth investors and threw networking parties for billionaires on his yacht Pandora, but no one really knew anything beyond that. I thought it was a classic Vanity Fair-style investigation, a glimpse into the lurid world of the super-rich, not the sort of thing Le Caché would get involved in.’

  ‘Why not? Didn’t you trust her to have found something more newsworthy?’

  Eduardo met her gaze. ‘I always trusted Sandrine.’

  ‘So if Sandrine thought she had a great story then she did. Surely we owe it to her to complete her work.’

  Stefan looked sympathetic but not entirely convinced.

  ‘But where do we start? Sandrine didn’t put her notes on the Le Caché server; we’ve asked a few colleagues and no-one seems to know anything about it.’

  Lara looked at him.

  ‘We’re journalists, Stefan. Isn’t that what we do? Dig?’

  But as Lara spoke, a thought shifted; something Alex had said the morning on her houseboat. ‘What did you see?’

  It wasn�
�t what Lara had seen in Sandrine’s flat, it was what she didn’t see. Her computer. Looking back, that was what was strange about that apartment, what felt missing. She looked up at Eduardo, debating whether to mention it. No. The truth was she didn’t still trust him.

  ‘So does this mean you’re joining Le Caché?’ said Eduardo.

  ‘Maybe,’ she replied. Perhaps it was a way to deal with the pain; it was certainly a way to honour her friend’s life. ‘I can’t let Sandrine’s work die with her.’

  Eduardo raised a hand towards the waitress.

  ‘Maybe is excellent news. How about we toast it with a glass of champagne?’

  Lara nodded and smiled. Sure, she thought. For now.

  Chapter 7

  Stella Harris wiped the counter, the latest battle in her endless war against coffee cup rings. It was, she estimated, the fiftieth time she had run a sponge over the faux-marble counter and still the stains wouldn’t shift. She looked wearily back at the coffee machine, burping and hissing as if it was about to die: she shouldn’t be surprised, everything in this café was peeling around the edges or falling apart.

  Present company included, she thought, rinsing out her cloth.

  Stella had signed up for as many hours as she could get at Starclucks coffee shop when she’d been ‘let go’ from the Chronicle the previous week. She hadn’t exactly been the best paid member of the investigations team, but now even those modest cheques were gone, Stella’s tiny place in Seven Sisters, a run-down flat she shared with other two girls and a lot creeping mould, was a luxury she could barely afford.

  She reached for a sack of coffee beans and began filling the hopper on top of the machine. The board outside the café boasted of artisan single-origin free trade beans, but Stella knew for a fact that the owner Jimmy got them in bulk from a bloke on the market, no questions asked.

  Starclucks was an ironic pastiche of the more famous Seattle institution, although in reality, it was a standard greasy spoon café with stripped-pine chairs and a new logo painted on the front, the familiar green mermaid replaced by a chicken with a crown and a forked tail. It was owned by Jimmy Reeves, Stella’s uncle. Not a real uncle, just an old friend of the family, a semi-criminal ducker-and-diver who owned a string of dodgy businesses in the North London corridor, but Stella couldn’t really afford to be too picky about work right now and had been grateful for the offer of a position of barista-cum-cleaner. She looked down at her wrinkled hands, coffee grains under the nails. Surely there had to be something better than this.

  At least the lunch rush was over; only one customer left sitting hunched over his long-gone cold cappuccino, a handsome forty-something sitting alone in a booth by the door. Stella pretended to clean the foam nozzle on the coffee machine while she used the mirror behind the bar to look at the lone patron. Now she thought about it, he’d been here quite a while. He was wearing a dark suit and reading the paper – the FT, which in Jimmy’s café was like seeing a unicorn. A high-powered company director, perhaps? But this was the Holloway Road, not Mayfair. If you wanted a phone charger or a cheap haircut, London’s main artery northwest was the place to be, but it wasn’t exactly a hotbed of high finance. Stella’s instincts for a story began to jangle. So why was he here? If he was just watching the world go by, he’d have been sitting in the window, not in a booth.

  Curious, Stella walked across, picking up stray cups as she went.

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’ she asked.

  ‘No, still got this,’ said the man, lifting his cup.

  ‘No problem, take your time,’ said Stella.

  ‘Oi, have you cleaned the machine?’

  Glenda, Uncle Jimmy’s eldest, walked out from the back. Jimmy had handed the café over to her to ‘manage’, which Glenda had interpreted as ‘sitting in the back selling stuff on Ebay’ and doing her best to push the staff around.

  ‘I am doing it right now,’ said Stella sweetly.

  ‘Well, see that you do.’

  Stella looked up as the door opened. An attractive forty-something woman. She didn’t look up at the counter or the board behind listing the drinks, she looked around – then flashed a smile at the lone diner. Ah. He had been waiting for her. Stella watched in the mirror as the woman slid in opposite the FT-reader. A happy-to-see-you smile, but no kiss noted Stella. A first date? But then the woman glanced around and touched his hand. He had a wedding ring, she didn’t.

  An affair. Stella’s instincts about a story were always right.

  But look where it got me, thought Stella, wiping the nozzle again with increased vigour. Stella had not been given many breaks growing up in the Easterhouse district of Glasgow. Her father, a bitter, angry and abusive man, walked out when she was ten, her mother’s alcohol problems ramping up from that standing start. Stella was told that she would never amount to anything – by her father, by the bullies at school, even by her mother, who lost herself in short-lived affairs. But Stella had ignored them all, worked hard at school, won a place at the city’s University, where she’d found her passion – the student newspaper. At a time when her contemporaries were discovering social media and dreaming of becoming influencers, Stella had sold stories to the Record and The Scotsman, finally landing a job on the Chronicle investigations team. For a few short years, she’d found her groove, proved her detractors wrong, but even that had finally gone tits-up thanks to Darius Allen, Felix Tait and whole load of terrible luck. Or maybe cranking out caramel lattés and wiping the counter was her level after all.

  The door opened; the cheating couple were on their way out, off to some hotel perhaps. Stella ducked under the counter, rummaging around for the floor cleaner. Might as well get on with it now while the café was a ghost town.

  ‘Are you still serving?’ said a voice.

  ‘Just a minute madam, I’ll be with you…’ she said, bobbing up. ‘Lara!’

  She swung under the counter to embrace her old boss. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  ‘Who could resist a coffee shop called Starclucks?’

  Stella pulled a face.

  ‘Uncle Jimmy thinks it’ll attract the hipster crowd’.

  ‘More likely the attention of Seattle-based lawyers,’ smiled Lara.

  ‘Yeah, well good luck with getting any money out of Uncle Jimmy.’

  Lara looked around, taking in the empty tables.

  ‘I can see it’s a little slow.’

  ‘What can I get you? Double caff Frappuccino with vanilla?’

  Lara laughed.

  ‘Just an espresso, Stel. Sorry – maybe you should give me a croissant or something too. I haven’t been eating much lately.’

  It was only then that Stella noticed the dark semi-circles under Lara’s eyes and the pale skin. So much for being observant.

  ‘I heard about your friend Sandrine. I’m so sorry.’

  Lara gave a tight nod and looked away, so Stella gestured to the cakes under glass domes.

  ‘Help yourself to whatever you fancy and take a seat. I’ll crank up the machine and bring it across.’

  Lara was waiting in the booth the affair couple had lately vacated. Despite the circumstances, Stella couldn’t help but feel excited by her old boss’s unannounced appearance. She had missed the excitement and the camaraderie. And she had missed Lara too.

  ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ she asked.

  Lara pulled a thin smile.

  ‘First I wanted to apologise.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘All this,’ she said, gesturing towards Stella’s mop, propped up against the wall.

  ‘Working in Jimmy’s?’ said Stella. ‘It’s not too bad. He pays more than the minimum wage and lets me choose my hours.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry you’re not working at the Chronicle.’

  ‘Lara, I chose to join a profession that I knew was disappearing before our eyes. And everyone wants a cup of coffee. It’s a win-win.’

  She said it as joke but Stella had been devastate
d when Oliver Wolf, the Chronicle’s managing editor had summoned her into his office on the day of the High Court verdict and told her to clear her desk. Being Lara Stone’s assistant had been her dream job, right at the heart of one of the biggest newspapers in the country. But in ten short minutes, she was standing out in the street holding a box of files and all the staples she could carry. It was like it had never even happened.

  ‘Forget making coffee, Stella,’ said Lara. ‘You belong in newspapers.’

  Stella looked away. She’d thought that too until she emailed every news editor in town, only to be either ignored or told politely that she’d be ‘put on file’.

  ‘If you hear of anything, I’m available to start pretty much immediately,’ said Stella, forcing a smile.

  Lara gave a half-smile. ‘Well that’s good news, because how do you fancy coming to work for me?’

  Stella felt her heart jump.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  It had always been Stella’s dream to work for the great Lara Stone, the glamorous, fearless investigative reporter, ever since she had read a piece Lara had written about match fixing syndicates in European football leagues. It had been brave and funny and riveting and it was why Stella had turned down a news desk job at The Scottish Herald to move down to London for a zero-hours contract assistant’s job – less of a sideways move, more a definite step back. But the job was Lara Stone’s assistant and Stella would drop anything to work with her again: even working for Uncle Jimmy.

  ‘Work with you where?’ she asked. ‘Hasn’t the investigations team been disbanded?’

  Lara downed her espresso. ‘Not on a paper. Look, I’ll lay my cards on the table here Stella. No one except me seems to care that my friend is dead, no one else seems interested in looking into why she died. If the situation was reversed, I’m pretty damn sure that Sandrine would be moving heaven and earth to find out what happened to me. So I’m going to Paris. Tonight. And I’d like you to come with me.’

  Stella put down her cloth and started to laugh. Lara always made everything sound exciting, as if they were constantly in the middle of an adventure.