Fallen Angels

by Tara Hyland

  Like Barbara, he had a no-nonsense approach to interviewing. Time was clearly a precious commodity here, and no one liked to waste it.

  ‘So why do you want to work on a newspaper?’ he asked first off.

  ‘I’d like to be a journalist myself one day.’

  Cara had decided to be honest about her ambitions, even though it was a risk. If the Chronicle wanted a straight secretary they might decide not to take her, but she reckoned it was worth being open with them. It seemed to pay off, because Jake’s eyes sparked with interest.

  ‘Oh, so you fancy writing?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What? For one of the women’s mags?’

  She looked at him coolly. ‘For the Chronicle.’

  He nodded approvingly. ‘Ambitious. I like it.’

  Jake considered the young woman in front of him for a moment. Objectively, he could see she was quite a looker, and that worried him. She’d obviously dressed conservatively today, in a black and white wool pinafore with a black polo neck underneath, and low-heeled patent shoes. But even though she’d tried to divert attention from her looks, it was still impossible to ignore those long, shapely legs and the striking gamine face – and the last thing his all-male team needed was another distraction. Barbara had been the perfect assistant – the guys had been far too scared of her to give her any grief – and Jake would frankly have preferred to hire another middle-aged matron like her. But after three days of interviewing, Cara Healey was by far the best qualified candidate to walk through the door. And if he was honest, he’d warmed to her, too. She seemed hungry for the job, and as a self-made man himself, that was a quality he admired. He just needed to make sure she was of the right mettle, that she could handle the rough and tumble of the place.

  ‘Just so you’re clear,’ he drawled, running his eyes over her body, pointedly checking her out, ‘we come here to work. It’s not a fashion show.’

  He’d wanted to provoke a reaction, and he succeeded. Cara bristled. ‘Yeah, more like a jumble sale,’ she shot back, with an equally pointed look at his crumpled appearance.

  The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Damn, she thought. Insulting the man who made the decision about hiring her wasn’t exactly a smart move.

  But before she could apologise, he broke into a smile. ‘Well done, Miss Healey. You’ve just demonstrated one of the key qualities I look for in my team: a willingness to talk back.’ He held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the London Chronicle. The job’s yours if you want it.’

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chronicle, 15 November 1969

  American billionaire Maximilian Stanhope is suffering from lung cancer, according to a report in the LA Times. Sources close to the business mogul have confirmed that he recently had a lung removed. He is now recuperating from the operation at Stanhope Castle, his Californian home, before undergoing a course of drug treatment.

  Mr Stanhope has become something of a recluse in recent years. Ever since the death of his second wife, Frances Fitzgerald, back in 1959, he has withdrawn from public life. Following her fatal car crash, which was officially ruled an accident, the businessman has gradually liquidated all his assets and retreated to Stanhope Castle, where he lives alone with his daughter, Olivia. His son, Gabriel, hasn’t set foot in America for a decade now. He is believed to be living in North Africa.

  No representative of Mr Stanhope was available for comment.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Fleet Street, December 1969

  The pub was jammed, completely stuffed to the brim. Red-nosed journalists in worn suits jostled with jean-clad printers about to start their night shift. Cara pushed her way through the crowd, beer and cigarette ash spilling on her as she went. She’d learned not to mind. Every newspaper on Fleet Street had its own watering-hole, usually whichever was closest to their offices. The Chronicle and the Mirror favoured the White Hart, or the Stab-in-the-Back, as it was affectionately known. A legend in its own right, it was where the industry’s giants traded war stories, insults and even punches. It was as much a part of Cara’s workplace as the paper’s open-plan newsroom.

  She’d been sent down to fetch Desmond Haines, the Chronicle’s Chief Crime Correspondent. A tip had come in about a double murder in Hackney, and he was needed back to cover the story. One of the many larger-than-life characters in the business, he was a thirty-year veteran with a legendary ability to carry his drink. Cara saw him holding court at a prime table in the corner. He must have got there early in the afternoon to nab that spot.

  ‘I’m afraid all the seats are taken,’ he said as she got near.

  ‘Not to worry, pet,’ Ben Archer, the Sports Editor, joined in. ‘I saved a place for you right here.’ He patted his lap, to titters and catcalls from around the table.

  Cara ignored the sexist remark – she was used to them by now. Fleet Street was an aggressively male environment and the journalists were as puerile as a roomful of teenage boys. She could see now why Jake had given her such a hard time at the interview. The Chronicle was no place for a wallflower. Of its one hundred and twenty editorial staff, only two were women. Cara planned to make that three.

  Working at the Chronicle this past year had changed Cara’s whole outlook. At twenty-two, she finally felt that she had a purpose in life. Officially, she’d been hired as secretary to the News Desk; unofficially, she did whatever needed doing. There were the basic office tasks, of course: taking the minutes of the weekly editorial meeting, running proofs from the printers to the editors, and answering calls for the journalists. But then there was a lot of unofficial stuff too – nipping over to the nearby pub to find a reporter, or assessing which story tip-offs from members of the public were worth pursuing. Barbara had been right: this was no nine-to-five post.

  It was a baptism of fire. Within three months, Cara felt that she had the basics in journalism. She also knew for certain that she wanted to be a reporter one day. When she’d first seen the journalism students at Pitman, she’d assumed that they’d all had fancy educations and held university degrees. But there was a real mix at the Chronicle. Some of the staff had posh accents and had been to Oxbridge, but there were also a fair few who sounded like her and had worked their way up from the bottom. They told her how they’d left school at fifteen and started off on local newspapers, as post-room boys and office runners, learning the trade there before moving on to a national. That was what she liked most about the Chronicle: there was no snobbery. If you were good enough, you’d get your break. A handful of young female journalists were beginning to make their mark. Many had started off as secretaries, and had found a way in from there. And that meant there was no reason she couldn’t do so, too.

  ‘You’re needed back upstairs,’ Cara told Desmond now. She had to shout to be heard above the pub noise. ‘The subs have some queries on your copy.’

  It was code to let him know that a big story was breaking. She couldn’t risk a rival hack overhearing the real details and scooping the Chronicle. But Desmond got the message.

  ‘OK. I’ll be right with you.’

  He downed the last of his pint and then stood up, looking surprisingly steady after an afternoon of hard drinking. Like a lot of the journalists, he could spend most of his day in the Stab, and still turn out a snappy page-one lead. That was what had surprised Cara most in her first few weeks: the blatant excess of the print industry. Long, boozy lunches; unlimited expense accounts; outrageous practical jokes played on colleagues and rivals. Cara loved the seedy glamour of it all. It was like one big party going on in Fleet Street, and she was lucky enough to be part of it.

  ‘Now,’ Desmond said, once they were outside and a safe distance from eavesdroppers, ‘what’s this really about?’

  Cara quickly briefed him.

  ‘You coming up?’ the Crime Correspondent asked as they reached the Chronicle.

  ‘Nah. I’ve got somewhere to be.’

  In fact, she had her own story to get tonight. An
d if everything worked out, this could be her big break.

  A couple of weeks earlier, Cara had finally plucked up the courage to ask Jake for advice on getting her first byline. She wasn’t quite sure what the Chronicle’s News Editor thought of her. He wasn’t in the habit of complimenting people for simply performing their work competently. He’d kept her on after her probation period, so she couldn’t have been doing that badly, but the most she’d got out of him in all the time they’d been working together was the occasional, ‘Good job, Healey.’ She’d been half-hoping he might assign her a story at the weekly editorial meeting. But instead he made it clear that she was on her own.

  ‘Find me something good enough and I’ll print it,’ he told her.

  It was infuriating, but Cara wasn’t surprised. The Chronicle’s News Editor was known for his no-nonsense attitude. He was brusque and focused. Unlike Desmond Haines and his ilk, Jake Wiley was rarely found in the Stab. Occasionally, if the news team was celebrating a big scoop, he’d be there, able to hold his own with the rest, but for the most part he maintained a distance between himself and his reporters, which was probably the best way to keep that bunch of rogues in line. So the fact that he wasn’t going to do her any special favours was to be expected. And, as much as Cara might not want to admit it, she could see his point. This was a cut-throat business. She needed to prove that she was as worthy as any of the seasoned reporters.

  In the end, it was Jake who inadvertently provided her with the initial idea for an article. It was at the very end of the news team’s daily meeting, and almost as an afterthought he tossed a copy of that morning’s Chronicle onto the boardroom table.

  ‘Oh, and will someone get me a fresh angle on this.’ The paper was folded over onto page five, and he’d circled one of the articles in red. ‘There’s a story in here, and I don’t want the Screws getting it first.’

  He was referring to the News of the World, or the News and Screws as it was nicknamed. Everyone on the Chronicle lived in fear of being scooped by the investigative Sunday paper.

  The reporters filed out of the room, leaving Cara to tidy up. Out of curiosity, she picked up the paper to see the article that Jake had circled. It was a small, factual piece, relating to a court appearance by twenty-three-year-old Tobias Fairfax, the youngest son of Lord Fairfax. A few months earlier, two sixteen-year-old girls had been rushed to hospital following a party at Toby’s flat in Chelsea. They’d taken some bad LSD, cut with a poison, and when they woke up, they told the police that it had been supplied to them by none other than Toby Fairfax. He’d duly been arrested, but at the end of the trial the jury had returned a Not Guilty verdict. The girls, from ordinary working-class families, hadn’t stood a chance against the Fairfaxes’ expensive barrister. He’d got them so confused on the stand that it had ended up seeming as though they were addicts, when in fact they’d only experimented with cannabis once or twice before the night in question.

  Even though everyone knew Toby was guilty, the papers had been left with little option but to simply report the facts of the trial. It was galling, especially as his father, Lord Fairfax, had recently stood up in the House of Lords to take a stand against drugs, demanding the closure of underground hippy clubs like UFO, Middle Earth and Happening 44. And yet he was happy to see his son escape prosecution for a far worse crime. Now, everyone on Fleet Street was looking for a way to take Toby Fairfax down.

  Standing in the meeting room, Cara had felt a rush of exhilaration. This was her chance to impress Jake.

  After that, Cara had arranged to take a day of annual leave the following week to do some research. She took a train out to Essex to talk to the two girls. Their parents, stung by the accusations that had come out, had refused to let her speak to their daughters over the phone, so she waited for them outside their school. Nicola and Jenny were more than happy to go for a coffee at a nearby caff and tell her their side of what had happened.

  ‘Anything to help you nail him,’ said Jenny, the more outgoing of the two. The police had refused to look into the matter any further, after Lord Fairfax had had a quiet word with one of the Chief Inspectors.

  The girls told her that they’d first met Toby at Middle Earth. He was there most Fridays, apparently.

  And tonight Cara would be there, too.

  Back at her flat, Cara got ready for the evening ahead. With her increased wages at the Chronicle, she’d been able to move out of the flat she’d been sharing, and rent a one-bedroom garden flat in Earls Court. It wasn’t much, but having a place to call her own meant a great deal.

  She’d thought a lot about what to wear that evening, wanting to fit in with the outrageous crowd who attended the club. Since starting at the Chronicle, she’d begun to dress more conservatively, but this was her chance to let loose. In the end, she settled on a bright green smock that barely covered her bottom. With matching go-go boots and her short pixie cut, she looked a little like a female Peter Pan. Her lips were pale and her eyes smoky, and she carried a beaded bag, in which she had a Dictaphone and notepad. She doubted the Dictaphone would work with all the music, but she’d learned over the past few months at the Chronicle that a set of carefully taken shorthand notes would stand up in a court of law just as well as a recording.

  Middle Earth wasn’t anything like the places Cara had gone to with Danny. Those had been gangster hangouts, glitzy places where the men could show off their cash and connections. Middle Earth was the other end of the London underground scene: a hippy club, a place of free love and psychedelic flower power. Situated in a large cellar in Covent Garden, it had opened recently, after yet another drugs bust had closed UFO for good. Now, Middle Earth was the centre of the alternative scene.

  Cara arrived at the club a little after midnight, since there was no point going any earlier. Grant Miller, one of the Chronicle’s junior photographers, was already in the queue when she got there. Like Cara, he was young and eager to prove himself. When she’d approached him with her idea for nailing Toby Fairfax, he’d been happy to come along with her and try to capture the moment on camera. He was a quiet, deep-thinking young man, and Cara trusted him to keep news of what they were doing tonight to himself.

  He was usually quite a conservative dresser, and so she was pleased to see that he’d made an effort to blend in for the evening. In brown leather flares, fringed down the side, and a tight checked shirt, he looked a little like a cowboy.

  ‘Ready for this?’

  Instead of answering, he pulled up his Stetson, to give her a glimpse of the camera he’d concealed beneath.

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  Middle Earth was made up of a series of dark, cavernous rooms, which reminded Cara of a dungeon. Going inside the club was a little like entering Alice’s Wonderland: a strange, exotic place, full of curiosities. The air was heavy with the smell of incense and marijuana; the music so loud that Cara could hardly make out that it was The Who’s ‘Happy Jack’ playing.

  On the way from the tube, Cara had felt self-conscious in her outrageous outfit, but now as she went inside, she realised she was far from being the most exotically dressed. The girls were in everything from tiny hot pants to peasant blouses; some were barefoot, others braless; a few had painted flowers and hearts on their cheeks, while others whizzed by on roller skates. The men had long, flowing hair and full beards, and wore velvet bellbottoms and brocade jackets, kaftans and hippy beads. Psychedelic swirls clashed with paisley patterns, but nobody cared. A girl wafted by in an Indian-print skirt, clearly tripping, embracing everyone she bumped into. Cara had never seen anything like it before.

  It didn’t take long to spot Toby Fairfax – she recognised him from his photographs in the papers. He was working his way around the room, going up to strangers and offering them his wares, with seemingly no concern about being recognised. Running a quick hand through her hair, Cara waited for him to make his approach.

  ‘Hey, pretty girl. You looking for a good time?’

  Cara turned a
t the stranger’s voice. It was Toby. Tall and lean, he had that whole bohemian look going on: buckskin vest, flared trousers and strings of beads around his neck. His sandy hair, held back in a bandana, fell to his shoulders, looking softer and sleeker than that of any of the girls in the room. He was a weekend hippy, happy to use the counter-culture to justify his life of lazy pleasure.

  Keeping in character, Cara gave him a sweet smile. ‘What’ve you got?’

  He held out his hand, opened his palm. She looked down at the little white tablet, with the pink heart etched into it. LSD.

  ‘How much?’

  He named his price. Cara handed over the money, and took the tablet from him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Grant snapping away. There was so much activity going on, that no one was paying any attention to him. She looked down at the pill she was holding, wondering if she dared to risk palming it. After those girls had ended up in hospital, she really wasn’t keen to experiment with whatever Toby was giving her.

  Opening her mouth, she pretended to pop the tablet on her tongue and swallow it, hoping that Toby wouldn’t notice.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Cara cycled along the Embankment, swerving to avoid a patch of ice on the road. She’d bought the bike a month after starting work at the Chronicle, when she’d realised that her hours were going to be so erratic that she needed an alternative to public transport – at least until she was made a journalist and given her own expense account. The only drawback to cycling was the weather. A frost had settled overnight, and after ten minutes in the bright, bitter December morning, the tips of her fingers were pink and numb from the cold, and her nose was beginning to drip. But even that wasn’t enough to dent her good mood. Because today, she was finally going to prove she had what it took to become a journalist.

  Toby hadn’t noticed her palm the LSD, and she’d managed to slip out of the club unnoticed. Then, over the weekend, she’d sketched an outline in longhand of what had happened at Middle Earth on Friday night. Now she was going into the Chronicle early to type up her article, before handing it to Jake. She was both excited and nervous to hear his opinion. She thought the article was good, but it was hard to be sure.