She saw. And she wasn’t surprised. He’d been told it was over, that there would be no further police action, but he couldn’t resist jumping straight in. ‘Brilliant,’ she said. ‘And how far did it get you?’
‘Not very. I just wanted him to know that I knew. That’s all.’
She could imagine it all too well. ‘Did he say anything?’
‘Smug as ever. Even if we could prove he’d had sex with the dead girl, so what, he said. Maybe she’d been a willing partner, maybe she’d begged him for it. Didn’t mean he’d killed her. I tell you, Jo, I nearly smashed his face in.’
‘You didn’t, though, I hope.’
‘Let’s just say it was a very close thing.’ He chuckled.
‘Mike, not even a jury would swallow that “willing partner” crap, surely. Not with what happened to that poor kid?’
‘I don’t think so either, but it’s irrelevant, like I’ve told you, certainly as far as police action is concerned.’ His voice suddenly became very earnest. ‘Look, Jo, I’ve gone over and over in my mind what we could do to get the bastard. I reckon there’s only one thing left. A private prosecution.’
‘But double jeopardy still applies. And the burden of proof is the same.’
‘Yes. I reckon he could be done for rape and kidnap in a private action, though. The CPS wouldn’t have to be involved and I believe a really good barrister could swing it. I really do. Particularly if we made sure that the committal proceedings were after October.’
‘What happens in October?’
‘The Human Rights Act finally comes into force in the UK,’ he said.
Of course. She should have remembered that. ‘But it won’t change double jeopardy, will it?’ she asked. ‘It’s supposed to be about protecting people’s rights, after all.’
‘Yes. But the rights of victims as well as suspected criminals, Jo. I’ve just been on a course. It’s mandatory for coppers now, it’s got to be, or the whole damned lot of us will end up being locked up instead of the fucking villains. You can start forgetting Westminster and the Law Lords. Think Strasbourg and Brussels. Mostly it’s a nightmare, but hard to believe as it may be, Europe’s actually come up with one thing that might help those of us who are at least supposed to be on the side of the good guys. Look it up. The Seventh Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article Four. Oh – and then go to Section Six of the Human Rights Act.’
‘OK,’ she said casually. ‘I’ll look it up. I don’t quite get where this conversation is leading, though. Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because I want you to go to that poor kid’s family and persuade them to take out a private prosecution,’ he said.
‘Oh, is that all?’
‘Christ, Jo, you’re a bit heavy on the sarcasm today, aren’t you,’ he countered, the irritation clear in his voice.
‘You really don’t change, Mike,’ she murmured softly.
‘I was thinking just the same thing about you,’ he said.
‘OK, why do you want me to go to her family? Why don’t you go to them yourself? Do they know about the DNA match, has anybody told them?’
‘No, they don’t know and the brass have decided they shouldn’t be told. No point, too painful, some such bollocks. I don’t agree with it, but I don’t dare go against them. I’ve only got two and a half years to do for my thirty and I have enough blots on my record as it is.’
‘Maybe you have changed after all,’ she said, her tone lightly bantering.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I’ve just settled for what I’ve got. I’ve risked enough already. There comes a time. The Phillipses wouldn’t want to hear from me anyway; they blamed me, you know, left me in no doubt that they considered me responsible for the whole damn cock-up. I’m the last person to persuade them to get involved in another major court case, to drag it all up again.’
‘I don’t think they were exactly mad about me in the end either,’ she remarked wryly. ‘Not after the buy-up.’
‘Perhaps, but you didn’t have the same personal involvement – and you’ve still got clout.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, I’m damn sure they’d still like to see their daughter’s murderer get what’s coming to him, but whether or not they’ll be prepared to take on a case against him by themselves I very much doubt. Apart from the anguish of it, there’s the financial side too. A case like this could cost hundreds of thousands if it went wrong. I know they were wealthy people then, but I’m told their fortunes have changed considerably. I don’t think they’d dare take the risk. Not after all this time. I was hoping you might be able to get the Comet behind this one. Get the paper to finance it.’
‘Mike, for God’s sake. What planet are you on? Papers don’t throw money around like that any more.’
‘C’mon, Jo. They do if a story’s big enough. We both know that. You do a deal with this family and you get everything first. Think about it. It’ll be a huge ground-breaking court case and the Comet will be on the inside. All you have to do is pay the costs and it’s yours.’
‘Just like that,’ she responded.
‘Just like that,’ he repeated expressionlessly.
‘Well, it’s not just like that, Mike, not any more, not if it ever was. What if it all goes pear-shaped again? The CPS have turned you guys down. The risk factor of a private prosecution would be huge. Apart from anything else, there’s a big argument that, right or wrong, this case was buried a long time ago.’
‘I don’t think it ever will be, not for you and me,’ he said quietly.
He was right, of course, and perhaps it was that which made her so angry. ‘Oh, grow up, Mike,’ she snapped. ‘The case, you, me, everything – it was two decades ago, for Christ’s sake. It’s over. Anyway, even if I wanted to get involved again I honestly don’t think I would have a hope in hell of getting the Comet to back it, not in the present climate.’
She knew she must sound patronising. She knew how much he hated being patronised, particularly by her. But she still didn’t expect him to come back to her quite the way he did.
‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d have any problem there, Joanna,’ he shot back at her. ‘After all, you are sleeping with the editor.’
The anger overwhelmed her then. ‘Fuck off, Mike,’ she told him.
Joanna put one hand to her head and glared at the telephone, which she had promptly slammed down on him. Just who did Mike Fielding think he was? How could he be so damned arrogant? How could he think he could just bowl back into her life with all his baggage? The whole O’Donnell business was his problem, not hers. She had just been a young crime reporter covering the case – not the detective who blew it wide open because, as usual, he was in too much of a hurry. For her it was history. She had a new life. She had the column she had always wanted, ‘Sword of Justice’, a weekly eulogy championing the rights of the individual against the restrictions of a government and a legal system which purported to be liberal but actually, in her opinion, encroached upon freedom more than any other in her lifetime. She was proud of ‘Sword of Justice’, even though she knew well enough it was little more than the Comet’s sop to great campaigning days long past.
She also had a family she was proud of, an eleven-year-old daughter who was the apple of her eye – and a husband. A husband who happened to be the editor. Anybody but Mike would have said, ‘After all, you are married to the editor.’ Not Fielding. He had always had a way with words. He could always out-snide the best. He could never resist going just that bit further than other people would.
Her eyes were drawn to the photograph on her desk. She and Paul, taken at their wedding reception. Both beaming at the camera. She was wearing a tailored cream silk suit. It still seemed very beautiful to her, as indeed it should have been. It was Paul Costelloe and had cost nearly £1000 even then. Her bridegroom had wanted the best for her. For them both.
She studied him closely. Even features. Average height.
Mousy brown hair, thick and springy, slightly longer then than would be fashionable now. Horn-rimmed glasses. He was never a typical Englishman in any way. She always thought he had looked more like a Harvard preppie in those days, a real American WASP. He was glancing at her sideways, smiling proudly, shyly almost. He did not have the appearance of a remarkable man at all. He had never looked like one or, in his younger days at any rate, appeared to behave like one.
She switched her attention back to her own image in the photograph. The long mid-blond hair framing a thin person’s narrow face, her smile easy and wide, displaying even white teeth. She’d had them professionally scraped and cleaned four times a year then, in order to keep the nicotine stains at bay. That had been her big vanity. She hadn’t been able to stand the thought of yellow teeth, but she never even considered giving up smoking, not until years later. All too often it had felt as if only the cigarettes got her through the day. She looked happy in the picture and she supposed she had been happy, though what she actually remembered more than anything else was her sense of bewilderment.
She looked into her husband’s eyes in the photograph, masked by those thick-lensed glasses. She had often thought they must be very convenient to hide behind and once she had asked him if he really needed such thick lenses. He had laughed lightly and changed the subject. She had never asked again.
Absently she stretched out her right hand and placed the tip of her forefinger very precisely over his smile so that the lower part of his face was covered and you could only see his eyes. Masked by those heavy lenses they were, as ever, merely cool and fathomless.
She sighed. As well as being a bloody great editor he was an attentive, caring husband and a brilliant father who managed to find time for both his wife and daughter in spite of holding down one of the most demanding jobs in the modern world.
Their daughter, Emily, was bright, well adjusted, healthy and self-possessed. Perhaps a little too self-possessed, but certainly she had so far given neither of her parents much anxiety about anything. Of course, Joanna realised that might all change when Emily reached the dreaded teens. However, perversely she knew, she sometimes found herself rather looking forward to having a petulant adolescent to deal with. Occasionally it felt as if life were just too well ordered.
The family lived in a dream home on Richmond Hill. Joanna spent three days a week in the office of the Comet and the rest of her time enjoying herself. House and daughter were undemanding. Both were impeccably organised, almost all according to her husband’s direction, and with the help of a four-times-a-week cleaner and an au pair who picked Emily up from school every day and supervised her until whichever parent returned first.
Joanna had never had reason for one moment to doubt the love of the man she had married, nor his commitment to her. Her friends thought she was immensely lucky and she knew she was. She supposed that she loved him too, but it was not something to which she gave much thought.
She ran her hands through her hair, still more or less the same shade of blonde it had always been although helped along occasionally by streaked highlights, but now cropped short in a fashionable up-to-date style. She had put on some weight but her body was still in good shape – muscles firmish, no dreaded cellulite yet, thank God – maintained these days by regular workouts at the gym. People said she had changed little over the years. She had suddenly reached the grand old age of forty-seven, with another birthday approaching fast, although she really didn’t know how the hell it had happened, but a well-defined bone structure had kept her face from falling – so far, anyway. Her complexion remained clear, her skin lined a little around the eyes and mouth but still relatively smooth and unblemished. She supposed that one of the advantages of never having been a great beauty or even particularly pretty was that you didn’t change so much with the years. She certainly felt much the same as she had always done, but then, that was always the problem of ageing. You did feel the same, inside. She realised that she was tapping the heel of her left foot rhythmically on the ground. She felt disturbed, unsure of herself, for the first time in years. In fact, truth be told, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt anything much for some years.
She had probably been too close to the Beast of Dartmoor case, too aware of the way Fielding and the rest of the team had handled it.
Now, twenty years later, she couldn’t resist being intrigued by what Mike had told her, but one half of her didn’t even want to think about it, really didn’t want to get involved again. For many years she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the case or anything else that it represented to her. She had definitely not allowed herself to think about Mike Fielding – which had made for a considerably easier state of mind.
She had half convinced herself that she really had forgotten him, that both he and the case were completely over for her. She had been wrong on both counts and that had come as something of a shock.
Suddenly it seemed like yesterday. The bloody man could still get under her skin like nobody else. And the case that had brought them together had always been much more than just another story. The poor murdered teenager had got under her skin, too. As had James Martin O’Donnell. The thought of playing a part in at least achieving some kind of justice, after all those years, appealed greatly, albeit against her better judgement. The problem was that all of it was tangled up inside her head with her memories of Fielding and what he had meant to her.
She wasn’t sure that she wanted to risk becoming involved in anything which might affect the life she and Paul had built for themselves. They were, after all, the golden couple of the media world: attractive, rich and privileged. In demand at all the right dinner parties. Rumour had it Paul was up for a knighthood. That would make Jo Lady Potter. Potter. Not the sort of name that went all that well with a title, really, she pondered. But Paul wouldn’t mind. He had worked towards it in the way that he worked towards everything in his life. Quietly. Assiduously. He had been editor for twelve years now, by far the longest of any of the other tabloid editors and something of a miracle in the modern world. The knighthood would not be so much a reward for longevity, however, as for the Comet’s so far more or less unwavering support for the present prime minister – for whom bestowing a knighthood was a small price to pay to ensure the continuing brainwashing of the paper’s ten million or so readers. Paul was also one of the few of the current crop of tabloid editors who had always managed to keep his nose clean.
He had to be the cleverest man she had ever met. There was little doubt about that. He remained deceptive in his manner, which was still quiet and relatively unassuming. Look him in those unfathomable brown eyes, though, and you got a glimpse of how exceptional he was. Theirs had never been a relationship born of great passion – not for her at any rate. They just fitted together, somehow. She always felt that she had found the right man. Certainly all her friends and family thought she had. She and Paul were generally regarded as having the ideal Fleet Street marriage. And she supposed they did. More or less.
She sighed and gazed out of the window. The Comet offices were on the twenty-first floor of the giant shining tower block known as 1 Canada Square. From her desk she could see right along the River Thames to Greenwich. It had been almost as good a day in London as in Devon. The sun had already set behind the distinctive dome of the Royal Observatory and had left a stunning afterglow. Streaks of crimson blazed across a darkening sky. The view was sensational. She looked around her. Her desk was at the far end of a huge open-plan room, as far away as possible from the editor’s office. After all, he was her husband. She preferred her own space.
The whole working area was clean and efficient-looking. There was very little clutter, the furniture new and streamlined, silent computers sitting on pristine desks. The atmosphere was calm and quiet. A bit like the editor, really. Rows of subs and reporters sat staring at flickering screens, barely moving. Certainly not talking. There was no chatter, no noise at all. Just still heads and busy fingers. Even the litt
er was sanitised. Empty plastic salad boxes had replaced greasy fish and chip papers.
God, she could even remember the smell of the grubby old offices at the top of Fetter Lane. There had been an air-conditioning system, of sorts, which never seemed to work properly. It was always either too hot or too cold, and by about this time in the evening the air would be acrid, the odour of fish and chips and bits of decaying burger mixed with stale cigarette smoke, beery breath and the odd blast of whisky fumes. Why was it that she and all the other dinosaurs yearned for the old days? More than anything, she knew, it was the atmosphere of excitement which had hovered over them continually, like a great big cloud waiting to burst, and which somehow seemed to be lacking from modern newspaper offices. The sheer hubbub of the place had been so much a part of that. The way the whole building shook when the presses started up. The clattering typewriters, journalists who talked to each other, often shouting across the room, instead of sending e-mails. Internal e-mails really irritated her. She had once suggested to Paul that he ban the practice.
His response had been heavily sarcastic. ‘Ban in-house e-mails. A really good progressive idea that. What age are you living in, Joanna?’
Interesting, really, Paul accusing her of living in the past when here she was confronted with it and finding it not welcome at all. Far too disturbing.
Absent-mindedly Jo nibbled at a thumbnail. She had weekly manicures now, of course, but she still couldn’t seem to stop herself biting her nails occasionally. She successfully chewed off a small piece of nail that had been irritating her and it dropped on to the sleeve of her jacket. She brushed it away. She was expensively dressed, as usual, in a sleek grey silk trouser suit, which would take her on to the chattering classes dinner party she and Paul were heading for later. There was no doubt she was in pretty good order for her age and she was probably fitter than she had been twenty years ago thanks to those gym sessions.
She had stopped smoking, of course. Hadn’t everybody? But she still drank just as much, maybe more. The media world might have entered a new puritanical age but she wasn’t giving up the booze even if she did seem to be surrounded by bright young things who thought a bottle of Mexican beer with a bit of lime shoved incongruously into its neck was the height of decadence and sophistication.
A Kind Of Wild Justice Page 16