‘If that’s what you say.’
‘Eric, tell me the truth. It’s bullshit, this whole China thing, isn’t it?’
‘It doesn’t matter whether it is or it isn’t. The bosses are very clear. You’re reassigned. Come in and get your new instructions. You hear me, Jeff?’
The secretary nodded for Howard Burke to go in. He could see Goldstein fixed on her screen, spectacles perched on the end of her nose. She waited a second and then another before looking up, then rose and moved over to the set of chairs by the window. At least she didn’t stay behind her desk, as he had feared: her sitting, him standing, as if awaiting punishment in the principal’s office. As she gestured for him to take a seat, he launched right in, too pent-up to wait for her cue.
‘I’m furious, Jane, I really am.’
‘Shouldn’t I be the one who’s furious?’
‘We both should be furious! What she’s done is an insult to you, to me, to this pap—’ He rapidly corrected himself, falling back into line with the approved corporate vocabulary. ‘To this news organization.’
‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’
‘It’s not that complicated, Jane. Madison Webb’ – the full name, as if he were talking about a criminal suspect or perhaps a fugitive in the news – ‘sent me a story she had written which fell well short of LA Times standards. Of any standards. Hearsay, conjecture, blind quotes, unsourced claims and, of course, a glaring conflict of interest.’
‘Her sister?’
‘Exactly. I got there as fast as I could. Crack of dawn. I don’t know if you know, but she keeps crazy hours. Really.’ He put a finger to his temple, as if to signal that the person they were discussing was a lunatic, but the blankness of Goldstein’s expression deterred him from making the full gesture. ‘Anyway, I told her what I just told you. There was no way the LA Times could run such a story. No way at all.’
‘And then she ran it anyway?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say she ran it exactly. She posted it. Without permission.’
‘Using access codes we gave her?’
‘Well, yes, but years ago. And not for this purpose. It’s a complete abuse of our system. It’s an abuse of our trust.’
‘I understand, Howard.’
‘I took it down straight away, of course, but you know how it is out there, online. It’s the wild west. There are no—’
‘Howard—’
‘They’ve copied it and copied it. Cached it, mirrored it, you name it—’
‘Howard!’
‘Sorry, Jane. It’s just, I’m so—’
‘What do you want to do about it?’
‘About the story? We’ve already issued a—’
‘About Maddy.’
At last, Howard Burke took a breath. And then let out a sigh. ‘She has huge talent, there’s no denying it. She’s the best reporter I’ve got, by a mile. But she can be impossible, you know that. And she’s just broken every rule we have. I mean, if we can’t trust her, it doesn’t matter how good she is, does it?’
‘You think this story has caused us damage?’
‘To our reputation? Huge. And with, you know … yeah, I’d say that was pretty lasting damage.’
‘If she’s wrong.’
‘Even if she’s right, Jane. You can’t just take a flier like this. This is serious stuff, you don’t say a word till you’ve got it nailed.’
‘I know that, Howard.’
‘Of course, of course. I didn’t mean to … I was trying to say that you and I know this, but I’m not sure Maddy does. And until she does, I don’t think …’
He let the sentence peter out. But they both knew what he meant.
‘Howard, see that story there, the one in the frame, just behind you?’
He twisted his neck to see it. It was the splash from all those years ago. US–Chinese Treaty looms, critics call it ‘Surrender’.
‘Yes, Jane. I see it.’
‘Do you know the funny thing about that story?’
He shook his head.
‘The date on it is wrong.’
He looked over his shoulder again. The date looked perfectly right to him, the date every kid learned at school, the date that was in the history books. He gave her a quizzical look.
‘The date’s wrong because it should have been a day earlier.’
‘I don’t follow, Jane.’
‘I had the story a day earlier. I filed it, I had it double-sourced. But the man who sat in this chair said no. He was getting calls from DC, pressure, you know the drill. He didn’t believe it. Or maybe he thought it was too much of a risk. I don’t know, he never told me. So he held it for twenty-four hours. Seemed the sensible thing to do at the time.’
There was a pause while he received her message. ‘With respect, I think this is real different, Jane. Madison hasn’t got one, let alone two real sources and—’
‘I know. I’m just saying sometimes we can be a bit too quick to silence young, bright, female journalists when they bring in stories that shock us. This paper has a history of it.’
‘I don’t see what being female has—’
‘I don’t want you to fire Madison, Howard. She’s too good and too special for that. Find another solution.’
Jeff Howe was too stunned to feel anger. He was in a state he had seen a hundred times in victims, but never in himself. He was in shock.
He left Sutcliffe’s office staring straight ahead, conscious of the eyes on him as he walked through the homicide floor: the once rising star, now crashed to earth. He didn’t want to talk to anybody.
It was by the elevators that he was eventually cornered. Gary Cole saw him and raised his eyebrows in a smile. It was clear even before he had opened his mouth that he hadn’t heard about Jeff’s ‘re-assignment’.
‘So, buddy, how you doing?’
‘Not bad, Gary. Not bad.’
‘Gotta tell you, that friend of yours has done us a big favour. “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”’ He grinned broadly.
Jeff chose to grin back, nodding enthusiastically but saying nothing, so that Cole would say more. It worked.
‘I mean, we’ve been doing this thing in the dark for weeks now. And it’s not getting results. I’ve been telling them, “We gotta get this out there.”’
‘In the dark?’
Cole lowered his voice. ‘Now we’ve got Barbara and Steve on board, there’s six of us on it. But all on the down low, even in here. Command demanded a total news blackout. Brief the media that these were suicides, all files to be restricted access to prevent leaks, only a summary held by the coroner’s office – the whole nine yards.’
Jeff was doing his best to project nonchalance, to look less interested than he was. ‘Oh, I’ve worked on those. What was the reason this time?’
‘Usual thing: serial killer craves fame and attention, don’t give it to him. That’s the official reason anyway.’
‘So there’s no doubt this is a serial.’
‘No doubt at all. The guy’s leaving a calling card. Seemed that way from the first one, but no doubt after the second.’
‘The second being …?’
‘You want to read your friend’s story, buddy. Rosario Padilla.’
‘And the first was Eveline Plaats?’
‘Yup. Just like in the story. Which is why they’re going apeshit up there. They assume your friend’s got a source. I’m surprised they haven’t hauled your ass in yet.’
‘And Webb’s sister is definitely the third?’
‘Seems that way. Same signature as the others.’
‘Jesus. And what about the Chinese thing? Is she—’
‘Well, I can see why she’s jumped to that conclusion. I mean, we’re looking at that too.’
‘Because the victims all had a connection with—’
‘No. To be honest,’ he dipped his voice quieter still, ‘she had more on that than we got. We didn’t even know about Plaats and the cleaning
job.’
‘So why were you—’
Still whispering, Cole said. ‘The calling card.’
Jeff, now straining to seem cool and only mildly interested, raised his eyebrows.
Cole reached for the folder he’d been keeping under his arm. ‘I’m only doing this because we’re in the open now. Which is what I’ve been saying we should be from the beginning, but anyway. Here.’
Cole began to work his way through a sheaf of crime scene photographs, then a series of pictures from the coroner’s office. Finally he reached the one he’d been looking for. ‘That’s Abigail Webb,’ he said, as he let Jeff get a brief glimpse, before returning the photo to the folder and putting it back under his arm.
The picture showed a young blonde woman, stripped down to her underwear, lying on what Jeff presumed was a pathologist’s table. She was unmarked, as far as he could tell: no wounds or lacerations.
Still, what Cole had called the killer’s calling card was unmistakable. Tucked into Abigail Webb’s underwear was a flower, laid in a diagonal, its stem poking out of the top on the right and continuing down past her thighs on the left. Even seen fleetingly, Jeff Howe found the image unsettling.
It took him a few seconds to say, ‘And that was the same with the other girls?’
‘That’s right,’ said Cole. ‘All found the same way. Silk flower in the panties, right across the snatch. Even on Plaats, the first one, it looked like some kind of signature – so they kept that detail back.’
‘Then Padilla confirmed the pattern.’
‘Yep. Weird, don’t you think? He doesn’t put his fingers there, doesn’t put his dick there. He just leaves a flower. Like, he’s proving how Zen and self-restrained he is. Or maybe he’s gay. I don’t know. Anyway, look, Jeff, I gotta run. But, you know, any bright ideas, any leads, you know where to find us. We need all the help we can get on this one.’
Cole had already turned and begun his walk away, his arm raised in a wave, when Jeff called out.
‘Hey, Gary. One other thing. What kind of flower?’
‘What?’
‘The silk flower. What kind was it?’
‘Oh, didn’t I say? Well, you can tell your friend she’s no fool. The flower was a poppy. A red silk poppy.’
Chapter 26
Leo had counselled against this venue, but clearly he had not done so forcefully enough. He never liked breakfast events at the best of times, especially for donors. No alcohol, so you were starting at an immediate disadvantage – though that was less of a factor in LA where the rich drank nothing but wheatgrass smoothies anyway.
He glanced down at his phone. A weib from the official LA Times account. ‘Statement from the LA Times,’ it said baldly, followed by a link. He clicked on it to read a single paragraph.
The Los Angeles Times wishes to apologize to its readers for a story that appeared earlier today under the byline of Times reporter Madison Webb. The story was unauthorized and as such did not go through the usual Times editorial processes. It was removed as soon as possible. Lawyers for the LA Times are working with internet service providers to halt its publication elsewhere online. The item represented a breach of Times protocol and should never have appeared. LA Times Executive Editor Jane Goldstein said, ‘The LA Times wishes to apologize to all those who have been distressed by this rare lapse in Times standards. The technical defects that made this lapse possible are being addressed.’
Oh, Maddy. She was tough and strong, he’d known that from the beginning. But he also knew that Madison was not quite as solid as she would have you believe: sometimes she needed another person to help carry that weight. For a while, that had been him. And now, just when she should be allowed to grieve for her kid sister, she had made an enemy of the mighty People’s Republic and her own employer – all before most people had had breakfast.
He had gasped when he saw the original weib: Latest on murder of Abigail Webb, possible China connection? Literally gasped, out loud. Officially, he would say that there was nothing Madison Webb could do that would surprise him, that her knack for finding a line and promptly crossing it was so well-honed that her doing the unpredictable had become predictable. He might say that, but it would not be true. Somehow even he, who by now should really have got used to Maddy’s disregard of all convention and accepted constraints, her absurd pig-headedness and the sheer size of her cojones, could still be shocked. This statement from the Times did not, by contrast, surprise him in the least: he had only had to read the lede on her story this morning to know that she had smuggled it online without permission. There was no way any editor of the LA Times would have let that through.
He wanted to call her. She’d be feeling the pressure now, no doubt about it. She’d landed herself in the deepest of deep shit before, but this was different. He couldn’t remember a public statement, disavowing her. In fact, he couldn’t remember the paper disavowing any of its journalists like that. It had never happened
And all this while she was mourning Abigail. More than once, he had wondered if Madison was borderline crazy. Indeed, on one occasion, he had used that very phrase to her face, with results that were not good. But now he saw it as quite possible that, if Maddy did indeed walk that edge, the loss of Abigail had pushed her over it.
He thumbed out a text.
Can’t imagine what you’re going through. Here if you need me.
First line too saccharine, second line too cursory.
Maddy, I’m guessing you’re having a very hard time just now. Is there anything I can do to help?
Didn’t even sound like him. Too limp-wristed.
Maddy, I can see the hole you’re in from here. Let’s talk. L.
Fine when they were dating. Too flip now.
Finally, he stabbed out something inadequate but not disastrous.
I want to help. Call when you can. L
He spent another three minutes debating with himself whether he should put an ‘x’ on the end of that. Ubiquitous now, it could hardly cause offence. Though it was different coming from him. It was at once too much and too little. They had been lovers, their attachment too strong to be reduced to an empty ‘x’. Yet, without it, that ‘L’ looked so stark. He finally pressed the button – leaving off the kiss.
He put the phone back in his pants pocket and surveyed the room. The only thing worse than a breakfast fundraiser was a breakfast fundraiser in a bad venue. Like this one. A basement ballroom in a hotel in Thousand Oaks, bland walls, dark carpet to absorb the stains, all flooded by artificial light. If you were going to haul people out of bed at this hour, at least let them see some sunlight. Leo counted the tables and made an estimate for the morning’s takings – eighteen tables, ten donors per table, thousand per donor – checked the banner behind the lectern – Forward, Together – picked up a forlorn lotus-seed bun, sought to avoid conversation with any of the guests and waited for the candidate.
The arrival was well co-ordinated, Mayor Richard Berger doing a good job of ‘sweeping in’ rather than the simple ‘walking in’ achieved by mere mortals. It helped that the entourage was boosted by the presence of a camera crew. A San Francisco channel, shadowing him for the day, provided the bustle, as well as the halo of TV lighting, required to make a politician look important. Leo watched from the back of the room.
For most events, he would meet his boss beforehand, briefing him on the way, telling him whom to avoid, who required extra kiss-ass treatment. But for this event – early start, distant location – he’d let one of the infants do it.
Now he watched as Ross, an over-keen rising star in the communications shop, whispered into the candidate’s ear as the latter rushed from table to table, shaking hands and kissing cheeks as if he had a plane to catch. All about creating the impression of urgency, even at an hour when no one – not even the would-be Governor of California – needed to be anywhere else.
Ross had conveyed whatever nugget he needed to impart and now, Leo observed, Berger had his fake face on,
the one he wore to cover up some alarm below the surface. He kept up the flesh-pressing and back-patting, but the smile was too wide, the eyes unnaturally bright.
Don’t tell me that idiot has actually told him.
Now, by way of confirmation, Ross was showing the mayor the screen of his phone, Berger breaking off from man-hugging donors to grab it with both hands, his eyes boring into the words displayed before him. This was a disaster. Leo couldn’t believe what that upstart asshole had done. You don’t knock the candidate off his game with seconds to go! If shit’s brewing, you hold it back. Let the star do his star turn, then drop the bombshell afterwards. Leo had planned to tell him, of course he had. But he was going to wait till the opening remarks were done, then fill the mayor in during the applause – ensuring the candidate was forewarned before the Q and A. Basic tradecraft.
Leo abandoned his perch, leaning against the side wall, and marched over to the front of the room, hoping to limit the damage. The young aide clocked Leo’s expression then scampered to the side, pre-emptively pushing himself out of the way.
‘Mr Mayor,’ Leo said, reaching for his boss’s elbow. The candidate turned to him with a broad, dazzle-white smile, as if greeting a long-lost friend. Through his teeth, he said, ‘Your lady-friend is brewing up quite the shitstorm, isn’t she?’
Seconds later, after a gushing introduction from the permatanned lawyer who was hosting the event, the politician was at the podium, fluently running through his talking points. He would revive Californian business, dig it out of the slump in which it had found itself these last few years. He still remembered the days when California was an economic powerhouse, when it was the place people all around the world dreamed of – and he was determined it would be that place once more. He knew the mountain was steep and the road was hard. It was for all America. The jobs his parents’ generation had taken for granted seemed to have gone forever. Once Americans could assume their economy was number one on the planet. Now it seemed hard just to cling on to its spot as number two. Some days you felt you were running in that global race and just watching as first one big country and then another came up on your shoulder and overtook you. But he believed in the people of California, in their ingenuity and enterprise. They would be strong once more. They just needed to join together, all of them – including those who had once been rivals – and make California what it had always been, the greatest place in the world. Thank you. Thank you so much.
The 3rd Woman Page 20