Hack

by Graham Johnson

  Oh no!!! ‘Wait there,’ I said, panicking. ‘Let’s just chill out first and order some drinks off room service.’ Anything to stall her. But by now she was pissed as well and bang up for the good times.

  While I was on the phone to reception, she started tugging at my belt playfully. ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Plenty of time for that later.’ I turned side-on to blank her. But when I looked back, she was laying on the bed totally naked. Her body was curiously smooth and plastery white. Not honed, but thin and mildly curvy. With small cup-shaped breasts. An aristocratic figure from a bygone age on a modern girl.

  Leaping up on to her knees, Claire gripped the waist of my trousers and skilfully dragged them down. I was trying to get her away. But within seconds she was through my boxies, and pulling me towards her. A starburst of twirlies exploded in my head. Before I knew it, Claire was locked on. How could I resist? She was champing at the bit. I closed my eyes. For a brief moment, I drunkenly submitted to the pleasure.

  ‘Fuck!’ I opened my eyes. Snapping out of it immediately. Yanking myself away from her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said, clearly hurt.

  ‘I can’t do it!’ I blustered. She looked surprised. But the damage had already been done. There was no doubt, that for however brief a moment, it had definitely happened. May not have been enough to draw DNA – no more than a few seconds in fact – but if it came down to it, I’d definitely had sexual relations with that woman. The one who looks like a naked courtier in a seventeenth-century oil painting hanging above a staircase in a stately home. The one now kneeling before me, looking confused. No denying it. I was bang to rights.

  Fucking hell – what had I done? Black swirls tailed through my brain. What had she done? How on top was this? I’d blown nearly £800 flash money. Bagged a great fucking story. Then gone and fucked the whole thing up, over a momentary lapse of reason, right at the end. What a fucking beaut! I sobered up quickly. I was getting sloppy.

  I fronted it out, as best I could. It’s funny. At that time, it seemed so fleeting, that it wasn’t much of an effort to automatically delete the incident out from the running order of the job. And carry on as though nothing had happened. A natural coping mechanism, I suppose. To clean the scene of the crime from the enormity of the fuck-up, in this poky half-cut hotel room.

  Meanwhile, Claire carried on, urging me to come to bed. I blundered on, still needing to get more chat on tape. In order to stall her advances, I said that I couldn’t have full sex with her because I didn’t have any condoms.

  ‘See if reception have got any?’ she asked, calling my bluff. ‘I can’t take all this money off you, and nothing happen. I’d feel guilty. Plus I like you. I want to sleep with you.’ Sounds corny, but she started giving it all the ‘you’re so different’ and ‘I’d like to see you again’ and going on about how her father would love me, and how she wanted to see me again on a proper date. Maybe I could meet the parents.

  With no other reason than to buy time, I called down to reception. ‘No,’ gruffed the night porter.

  ‘See, they’ve got none,’ I told her, ‘so we’ll have to leave it till another day – no way I’m shagging you without a bag on.’ I got what I needed chat-wise and then started to wrap up operations.

  ‘Maybe we could do this again,’ I said, as she put her dress back on. ‘Look, I really like you and that, but I’ve got an important meeting in the morning, maybe we could get together tomorrow night. Don’t worry about the money – keep it.’ With that, she got her kit on and I bundled her out.

  19

  Blown Out of Proportion

  At 8.30 am the next day I checked in with Ray on the phone.

  ‘Sorted,’ I said, the half-a-blow job hangovered into obscurity and not looking such a big deal now.

  ‘Got her on tape, offering me sex for dough,’ I informed him gleefully. ‘And she says her dad is definitely a Law Lord.’ Within a couple of hours we’d got Claire’s real name and identified her father in Who’s Who and Debrett’s. Pulled pictures of him. Not that we needed any, but the flimsy justification we cobbled together included a few court cases in which the big-shot judge had condemned prostitution. But all day the dread was pulsating in my stomach. Of what was about to come.

  I filed copy and after conference Ray came on: ‘I’m about to send this tart story over to the back bench but before I do – I’ve got to ask you – did you fuck her?’

  Gulp! ‘No, course not,’ I said, which was true. ‘The job’s all bang on, everything on tape.’ The thing is, as every vice reporter knows, silent japery of a naughty nature rarely comes out on tape anyway – a few groans and slurps here and there – so you can’t prove anything anyway.

  ‘OK, good. Well, if it’s all shipshape, front her up on the phone,’ said Ray, ‘and see what she’s got to say for herself.’ TP3 in ear. Tape on. Slowly, dialing the number. Not wanting to do this.

  Me: ‘Hi Claire, how’s it going?’

  Her: ‘Hi Graham, I’m so pleased that you called – I’ve been thinking about you.’

  Me: ‘OK, that’s nice, because I’ve been thinking about you as well.’

  Her: (Cue coy giggling) ‘When can I see you again?’

  Me: ‘Whenever, but I’ve got something to tell you first.’

  Her: ‘You sound all funny all of a sudden – everything OK?’ Her voice cracking a bit.

  Me: ‘Funny. What do you mean, funny?’ Not quite Joe Pesci in Goodfellas but a bit stern just to warm her up.

  Her: ‘A bit distant, as though, er, you don’t know me or something.’

  Me: ‘Well, yes, you’re right. That’s because I’m not really who you thought I was.’ I could imagine her heart sinking – how many times had she been deceived by men. How many times had she been deceived.

  Claire: ‘What do you mean?’

  Me: ‘I’m not a really the music industry person who took you out the last night. My real name is Graham Johnson and I’m an investigative reporter.’

  Her: ‘Oh.’

  Me: ‘For the News of the World.’

  Her: ‘Oh. No. Fuck . . .’

  Me: ‘Yes, ’fraid so, Claire. And the reason I wanted to talk to you is because we’re writing a story about you being a prostitute selling sex for money even though your dad is a top Law Lord.’

  Pause – time to sink in.

  Her: ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

  Me: ‘We’re going to expose you for being a prostitute in this Sunday’s newspaper. What have you got to say?’

  Claire broke down, sobbing and screaming.

  Her: ‘Graham, please don’t do that. How can you? I trusted you. I thought you were my friend.’

  Wow! She was not only slow but naive as well.

  Her: ‘I told you about my dad because I thought you were a nice guy. Please! Please don’t do this! I’m begging you. Not now – I’ve got a lot going on in my life, and it’ll push me over the edge, ruin my life. My dad doesn’t even deserve this. We don’t even speak any more – his life has nothing to do with mine. Please! Please! Ple . . .’

  ‘Great!’ I thought as she pleaded for mercy. In a way, I was relieved. Didn’t mention the blow job at all. Consumed with the shock, Claire mustn’t have thought it significant. May have even forgotten it, after all she was a drunk charlie-head.

  Over the next few hours Claire called me several times, each time getting increasingly desperate.

  ‘If you run this story, I’m going to commit suicide,’

  Always a tricky one. But to tell you the truth, we normally didn’t give a fuck. I remember one time when a man, who’d been fronted up by the Screws for child-molesting on a Saturday, topped himself that night, just before the paper hit the street. In the newsroom, a small cheer went up. Another scalp. Plus dead men made life easier – they can’t sue. On another occasion a swinger, who’d been turned over for no more than dabbling in a bit of suburban wife-swapping, was exposed. Took his own life after pleading that he’d
lose custody of his kids if his divorced wife found out. ‘Fuck his family,’ the reporter said, before the paper published the story. It was true – he did lose his kids, then his life. By now, deep down, I was even secretly reassured that Claire was drifting into whacko suicide territory – there was hope that she might take our sordid secret to her grave.

  ‘Is that you Graham?’ It was ten o’clock the next day. This time Claire’s voice was crisp and steely on the end of my moby. Gone was the flaky self-harmer with a mouthful of paracetamol.

  ‘How can you run a story about me selling sex for money,’ she said with dismissive formality, ‘when I gave you a blow job, after you paid me?’

  Fuck!

  Cringe-worthy conversation that followed isn’t in it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I protested weakly.

  Her: ‘Don’t you remember? I pulled your trousers down, fiddled your zip and, well, went down on you?’

  Me: ‘No, that didn’t happen, Claire.’

  Her: ‘Well, yes it did, Graham. You let me perform oral sex on you in the hotel and what’s more you liked it.’

  Me: ‘You’re talking nonsense and you know it.’

  Her: ‘You asked me to stop. I did.’

  ‘You’re making this up,’ I said, speaking over her, as though, by drowning her out, it would make what she was saying less credible. ‘You’re just trying to get out of the story.’

  Her: ‘No, you are making this up, Graham – like you’ve cooked up this whole story about me and my dad. The fact is I gave you a blow job which is against the rules – the News of the fucking World’s rules of engagement and now you’re denying it. Call yourself a reporter – you’re a fucking disgrace and sleazy shitbag one at that.’

  Wow! Both barrels. Gone was my cocky bully self. Put in my place. Speechless.

  Her: ‘At least I’ve got the decency to admit I was working as a hostess.’

  ‘You’re a prostitute,’ I rebutted weakly, trying to take the moral high ground – a good place to launch a bullying counter-attack from.

  ‘You sell your body for money. You take cocaine. You break the law. And now you’re trying to drag me down into your sordid little world by smearing me. Well it just won’t work. I will ask you once again: what have you got to say to our readers about your degenerate behaviour?’

  I am the tabloid evangelist.

  Her: ‘What have you got to say about yours?’

  Fuck – ‘What a heartless cunt she is,’ I thought. Trying to embarrass me like this.

  ‘You’re lying and you know you are,’ was all that I could think of.

  Claire’s lines were delivered thoughtfully and I was beaten. I could tell she was being coached and more worryingly I could sense that she was taping me.

  Minutes later, as I slouched at my desk, head in hands, an ominous green message flashed up on my terminal.

  RL: ‘Can you pop into my office a sec?’

  Ray asked me to close the door – must be on top. ‘This girl’s just been on to me,’ he said. ‘This tart. She’s alleging that you didn’t make your excuses and she performed oral sex on you.’ Alleged! Already all the jargon was coming out. All those terms they use in disciplinary hearings before they whack you. He was making it sound as though I’d fucking raped her or something.

  ‘Fuck off, Ray, she’s blagging,’ I rebutted. ‘She’s just trying to get the story spiked. Yesterday she was threatening to do herself in. Today, she’s making up all kinds of stories to force our hand. She’s a fucking fruitcake.’

  Ray went through the motions. Probing, man-to-man stares. A few questions. But in the end, like a public inquiry, I knew that Ray was always going to back his man.

  ‘OK, I believe you.’ said Ray.

  ‘Phew!’

  Funnily enough, slightly emboldened by Ray’s support, my worst fear now stopped being a sex scandal and became losing the story. Like all crazed NoW reporters, I was desperate to get the story in the paper at all costs – even though the sensible thing would have been to lie low and gently bin it. That was just the brainwashing kicking in.

  Ray must have mistaken this eagerness as a sign of my innocence and sent me round to bang her address. Front her up face-to-face and shut her down with my revenge. Now standing order: when under attack, go on the offensive. However, Claire wouldn’t come out of her posh West London mansion flat, but she called me on the mobile instead.

  ‘Not only did I give you a blow job,’ she attacked, straightaway. ‘But you would have shagged me except you didn’t have any condoms.’

  ‘No way,’ I said to her.

  When I got back to Wapping, another fear-loaded message flashed up on my computer. RL: ‘Office now.’

  Ray: ‘When you were on that hooker job with the Law Lord tart the other night, did you or did you not phone down to the hotel reception for some condoms at three in the morning?’ He was secretly taping me to cover his own back – must be getting serious.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I admitted. Good job I did admit it as well, as the call would have been logged at the hotel the duty manager could have confirmed it. So by coughing to it, it made the rest of my story look good.

  Ray: ‘OK, it’s just that this tart is now saying that not only did she blow you off, but that you were desperate to fuck her, but you couldn’t because you didn’t have a condom on you.’

  Me: ‘That’s bollocks. In fact, the exact opposite is true. I was using the fact that I didn’t have any condoms NOT to shag her and I phoned down to stall her.’

  Ray shook his head, bored with the technical deets already. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ he said, arms outstretched.

  ‘I know what you’re saying,’ he went on. ‘But it doesn’t look good, does it? Phoning down for johnnies at that hour – looks like you wanted to shag her but that you were worried about catching a dose off’f her, d’you know what I mean?’

  Things got rapidly worse. Two things started working against me.

  1. Claire was middle class and not the usual powerless peasant that I picked on. Once the middle classes get it together, they quickly become organised and effective and take no shit. They say complicated things.

  2. Claire lived in London. The thing about London is that anyone, no matter who, is never more than two steps away from knowing the right people. No one gives a fuck if you live in Liverpool, or Blackburn or Barrow or somewhere – who are you going to know? No one. The local shit kicker lawyer who gets smack-heads off robbing charges. No one. But in London, if you want to get hold of world class libel lawyer, the cleaner next door probably irons his shirts.

  Not the case down in that-there London. It turned out that Claire had broken down in front of her brother, who was some big deal person in some corporation somewhere. Of course, this being London, he knew some PR people, who in turn knew some fixers who were specialists at dealing with the News of the World. The PR gunslinger, that her and her brother had ended up getting into bed with, was none other than John Ross, the surly-faced ex-copper who I’d fucked off in Wine Press just a few days earlier. Claire and her brother had paid John Ross to neutralise the story. Now he was trying to destroy my life. John Ross had sat Claire down, got the full story, locked on to my little faux pas and knew exactly how to use it against me. He was going for the throat. To boot, the hard-faced twat had tipped off a broadsheet reporter, who was looking to do a dirty number on me in Private Eye or something. If only I’d taken time to meet John Ross a few days earlier, and bought him a drink at the Wine Press, told him how great he was etc. Maybe this all could have been avoided and laughed off as a lads’ night out.

  Then Shirley Ann Lye threw her oar in, kicking off that she hadn’t been weighed in for the story. John Ross had inadvertently told Shirley that I’d fucked one of her stories up by not making my excuses. Now she was calling me up from the Wine Press pay phone, humiliating me in a loud voice.

  ‘You dirty little cant,’ she boomed. ‘Caught with your pants down, then finkin’ you could
put one over on me by not paying me for the tip. I’m not paying the price of a sleazy facking blow job.’ Then she was going on to Ray blackmailing him to get paid, even though the story hadn’t gone in the paper. Fucking hell! Could any more people get to know about my vice? I was getting a taste of my own medicine.

  The following week the story was quietly dropped. The £800 written off. Kuttner deducted it from my expenses on the drip over the next few months. Paul McMullan was furious.

  ‘Any other reporter would have been sacked for that,’ he exploded from nowhere one day before conference.

  ‘You got caught bang to rights. But you’re Ray’s Golden Boy. Phil Hall likes you. You’re being protected.’ The gossip was that the PR gunslingers and freelancers, John Ross and Co., who had known about my minor scandal, had been paid off to drop their story on me. Bitterly, Paul listed a few other fuck-ups I’d notched up, which I thought had gone unnoticed. Next only to Bill Clinton’s, it was turning out to be the most expensive and troublesome sex act for a good long while.

  A few years later, one Saturday morning before Christmas, I was doing a bit of yuppified mincing around the Portobello Road market. New girlfriend on arm. Massive Starbucks in hand. Designer bags full of overpriced bric-a-brac hanging of us like baubles. Out of the corner, I saw a skinny girl sat on the curbside outside a pub. Nursing a handbag and a mobile phone, as though she’d been out all night. I recognised her instantly – it was Claire. Flustered and trampish, now though. Still a waif, still a worrier. Was she on the gear? Hard to tell – but her skin was sheeny white and greasy. For a brief moment, we caught each other’s eyes. I was heartbroken. I wondered if her dad knew his Little Princess was hustling on the street. I wanted to sweep her up and rescue her. A faint smile broke from under her scraggy hair, as though reaching out to talk. But I walked on, grey and jowelly, a busy London life beckoning. The fear still raw. Not yet having come to terms with my past.