Deadline

by Terence J. Quinn

  ‘Just promise me you’ll spend some time with them over the next few days? They still don’t know you very well and I want them to love you as much as I do.’

  18

  THAT MORNING’S news conference was a lively affair. Perhaps it was just that everyone was in festive mode. Despite my own tense state of mind, I warmed to the discussion. There was the usual mix of sombre news and light, mordant wit around the table. Journalists dealing with news about the worst of human behaviour often use black humour in the same way murder detectives do at a grisly crime scene: as a coping mechanism. And there was a more upbeat, confident mood in the room that had not been there when I had first arrived.

  Ray ‘Griffo’ Griffiths was Vernon Sharp’s replacement as head of content. He had been Vernon’s deputy, a smart operator who had been at the Daily Tribune when I worked there. Today was his first day in the role and he seemed a little nervous but his newslist sparkled with raw energy and ideas.

  ‘We have some leaked lines from the Queen’s Speech,’ Griffo began. ‘She touches on the whole terrorism thing, urges everyone to be more tolerant towards each other, particularly at this time of year; you know, “walk in each other’s shoes” sort of thing.

  ‘Next, we have reports from our Washington bureau that the US President-elect, Charles Connor, is under scrutiny for alleged business links to Russian financial institutions. His company is said to have received squillions in loans from Moscow banks following the GFC. The Democrats think the Russians will push for favours.’

  ‘President Conman, more like,’ said the sports editor.

  ‘How about: “President’s dreams turn to rouble”,’ said the chief photographer, Brian ‘Juggs’ Jagger. Now he was an interesting guy. Shiv had spoken highly of him – he had worked for several Fleet Street papers during a stellar career. The nickname came from the time he was commissioned to take pictures of topless ‘stunnas’ for a rival paper. I liked him; he was a funny guy and a great operator. Even more important, he was an Aussie, from Fremantle.

  Griffo talked about a follow-up to the Hugo Morgan saga, how the gay community were slamming the police for failing to find his assailants, before turning to the main story of the day: a serial killer stalking the streets of London’s East End, murdering prostitutes.

  ‘What’s new about that?’ I said.

  ‘But there’s a twist,’ Griffo said. ‘The cops think the sadist is trying to copy the killing spree of Jack the Ripper – almost to the letter. Same Whitechapel streets, same prostitute targets and, above all, same mode of killing: throats cut prior to deep stomach wounds being made and internal organs being ripped out. The original Jack murdered a minimum of five but maybe as many as eleven women in the 1880s, and the cops now reckon that the current killer aims to emulate that number. So far, he’s topped three.’

  ‘Not very Christmassy,’ I said.

  ‘Beats the Queen,’ Griffo fired back.

  ‘True. But also a bit London-centric. Will it play nationwide?’ I asked the circulation director, Jacinta Corrigan, a sharp, savvy black woman whose opinions I had come to trust.

  ‘Sure. Everyone loves a Ripper story. But the incredible thing is that there was a TV series called The Whitechapel Murders. Have you seen it?’

  ‘Nope. Not sure if it was screened in Australia.’

  Jacinta explained that it was also about a modern copycat killer and that the TV connection would help our story resonate with readers country-wide. I was to reply when I heard a squeak from the corner. I bent sideways and saw the Meerkat sitting cross-legged on the floor with his laptop on his knees. Another of his annoying habits in meetings. ‘You said something?’ I asked.

  ‘We could use a clip from the TV show on the website.’

  ‘Sure, why not,’ I said and turned to Griffiths. ‘Better get on to the show’s producers. Ask them if they feel any responsibility for setting this nutter off.’

  ‘Right boss. And I’ll also get someone from features to look at comparing modern police methods to those of the original mob. By all accounts they were like the Keystone Kops.’

  ‘Probably find not much has changed. What about pictures, Juggs?’

  ‘Not blessed, mate. Mainly crime scene stuff. Plus DI Mulroney who’s the copper in charge. And, of course, we’ll have stock pix of all the TV cast, including the sheila who plays the lead.’

  ‘Good onya,’ I said.

  ‘No worries, mate,’ Juggs replied with a huge grin.

  In the end, Shiv did her usual forensic job: crisp copy, great quotes from police and psychologists, and horrified denials from the TV company that their program had anything to do with the current crop of murders.

  The front page that night was a UKT classic:

  TV TEAM: ‘WE DID NOT SPARK NEW RIPPER MURDERS’

  Once again, I went home a happy man.

  19

  BORYA BOLSHAKOV waited in an anteroom. He had been sitting in an overstuffed armchair for ten minutes already. Standard operating procedure, he thought. Keep me waiting, show me my place. He almost laughed. The British … he’d show those stuck-up kakáshkas who was boss.

  The oligarch looked up at a portrait of Margaret Thatcher above the marble fireplace. It showed her with steely, slitted eyes and handbag at the ready. A woman after my own heart, he thought. She took no shit from no one.

  Another few minutes passed before a white door at the side of the fireplace opened and the Prime Minister emerged, followed by Barry Townend, his press secretary.

  ‘Good afternoon, James. So good of you to grant me audience,’ Bolshy said as they shook hands. If the PM clocked the sarcasm, he didn’t show it.

  ‘Mr Bolshakov, how nice to see you again. Barry, perhaps you could be so good as to go and check the Christmas lunch arrangements are in order?’

  When Townend had gone, the oligarch pointed at the painting and said: ‘She wasn’t for turning but you will be, Mr Prime Minister. Because you are not Iron Lady; you are more … Wicker Man.’ The Russian chuckled at his own joke. ‘Wicker Man was ancient sacrifice burned by priests!’

  ‘Now look here, Bolsh …’ Marvell blustered.

  ‘I tell you – you are my sacrifice and I fucking torch you unless you do as I say.’

  The PM was a tall, reedy man with a thin face and thin grey hair, combed straight back. He looked like a fading fifties matinee idol. A man with a pedigree of power and privilege; a man groomed to be a leader; a man accustomed to others doing his bidding. Now, he was in excruciating discomfort, his pallid face turning the colour of a mullet. One finger dug under his collar as he glared at his visitor. Bolshy pulled his chair closer to the politician’s.

  ‘I see I have your attention. Now we talk again about the loans for Marvell Manufacturing. The ones arranged by my wife. Ah, I see you are surprised … Yes, Varvara Moroshkin is Mrs Bolshakov. She uses maiden name still. Modern women, huh? The price we pay for progress.’ He gave a mock sigh.

  ‘I told you before, I will now tell you again. Those loans are overdue. My superiors – actually, my papochka – demands they be repaid. In full, with interest, of course.’

  ‘But you know my father, our family firm, cannot possibly repay yet. The market is still weak, our exports are –’

  The oligarch slammed his fist down on the coffee table that sat between them. ‘I am sick of hearing this bullshit. We have this conversation before. Answer is same – we do not fucking care! Now I tell you what is going to happen.’

  The Russian outlined his timetable for action. His newspaper would run a campaign during January calling for the British Government to relax economic and trade sanctions against Russia; in the first week of February, the Prime Minister would make a statement to Parliament saying that he had ‘heard the voice of the British people’ and that he would be asking the European Council to hold an emergency meeting to review existing sanctions in return for a few ‘guarantees of future good behaviour’ from President Rodchenko; Marvell would then start lobbying ot
her European leaders to vote alongside him in a bid to forestall a Special Session of the UN General Assembly scheduled later that month. ‘As you know, it has been timetabled for February 27 by Secretary-General at request of Security Council to debate resolution asking for measures against my country to be toughened,’ the Russian concluded. He looked up at Thatcher gazing down at them and winked at her.

  ‘Now, Wicker Man, it is time. Either you do what I ask or I burn you and your fucking family to the ground.’

  20

  ANNIE’S PARENTS had arrived. The apartment was in chaos but, after months of batching, I kind of liked it that way. Initially shy with his nana and grandpa, Percy was now bright-faced with excitement, rampaging around, happier with the discarded wrapping paper than the expensive toys they had brought him. Annie had somehow managed to find and decorate a fresh tree. It was a little sparse looking but the pine smell was intoxicating. Suddenly the thick snow outside seemed more appropriate. You don’t see too much of that in Sydney.

  I’d popped home briefly from the office to say hello to the Spencers; I was en route to Downing Street to have lunch with the Prime Minister. ‘As you do,’ I joked to Annie. Neville was downstairs waiting in the car, its exhaust pluming in the cold air. I had first met her parents in Sydney just after Percy was born and we had decided to get married. They were nice enough, perhaps a little stiff. But maybe that was because their daughter had hooked up with an awkward Aussie with a colourful past.

  Bolshy would also be at Downing Street. It would be my first time seeing him face to face since our session in Sydney. Martha had told me the boss was in town and wanted to see me the following day, but it was Neville who revealed that he’d also be at the Number 10 lunch. He had been talking to another driver, a Russian-speaking Pole that the oligarch used when he was in town. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting him.

  ‘’Ere guv,’ Nev said as we headed up Horse Guards Road towards Downing Street, ‘’ave you ’eard the one about the Polish geezer in the pub?’

  He proceeded to tell a terrible, racist joke but frankly my mind was on other things as I stared out over the frozen lake and skeletal trees in St James’s Park. I felt the heavy, ominous atmosphere of one of the greatest cities in the world weigh on my shoulders. Stuck at traffic lights, I buzzed down the window and breathed in the sharp tang of wintry London. At the green, Nev began to slalom through the dense sea of red double-deckers, delivery trucks and well-padded cyclists jockeying for position. I thought about what lay ahead: I had already met the PM and his wife briefly once or twice but this would be the first opportunity to spend time with them. My natural reserve always made me uncomfortable about such encounters.

  I don’t mind admitting that I felt a little self-important thrill as I passed through Number 10’s famous front door. A deceptively modest portal to three hundred years of imperial power. Not bad for a wild colonial boy, I told myself as I was ushered up the stone staircase with its wrought-iron balustrade and portraits of Marvell’s predecessors lining the canary-coloured walls to an anteroom. Like everyone else I had seen that steel, blast-proof black door endless times on newsreels and photographs: PMs arriving fresh and optimistic, leaving haggard and defeated; heads of other states ready for tough negotiations; rising politicians seeking preferment during cabinet reshuffles; or simply people like me happy to stickybeak around what Margaret Thatcher called ‘one of the most precious jewels in the national heritage’. It gave me a funny feeling to think that I was standing in the spot where, in 1786, William Pitt the Younger and his mates made the fateful decision to send the first convicts to Australia. If they hadn’t, I might not exist.

  Bolshy was already in the anteroom with some other guests when I arrived. He was talking to the PM’s wife. To my relief, he was all sweetness. ‘Jonno, it is good to see you. Cassandra, do you know Jonno Bligh? He is my editor. Jonno, this is Mrs Marvell, wife to Prime Minister. I’ve just had a short meeting with James.’ The oligarch flashed a smug smile. ‘I think we are on same page now.’

  Cassandra Marvell took my hand as if it were a cactus. ‘So good to see you again, Mr Bligh,’ she said. The PM’s wife was short and stiff with a Thatcher blow-dry and Clinton pantsuit. She looked at me with wary eyes, like a Wallaby fullback eyeing up All Black Jonah Lomu back in the day. She gave a curt nod before moving on to greet another guest. I counted eight of us, not including our hosts.

  Then Bolshy took me to one side and the smile looked a little more forced. He grabbed my arm and whispered, ‘We talk tomorrow, Jonno. I need to hear your plans for UN campaign.’ Then he disappeared, leaving me to be introduced to the other guests, who included Foreign Secretary Antonia Oppenheimer, Marcus Devereux, a junior Home Office minister and American Ambassador Dwayne Rawlings and his wife Kitty. Also in attendance were the PM’s press secretary Barry Townend and Douglas French, UK Today’s political editor.

  After half an hour of small talk, Townend finally led us into a small dining room and indicated our designated seats. It was a tight squeeze. A few minutes of chitchat went by before the door at the opposite end of the room was flung open and a rather grim, flustered-looking Prime Minister entered, followed by my boss, tombstone teeth on full show. Marvell’s face was the colour of feta cheese and he looked like a naughty schoolboy emerging from the headmaster’s study after receiving six of the best. Everyone except his wife stood up and Marvell flapped his arms at us to sit back down.

  I had pride of place, on the right hand of the PM. The American ambassador’s wife sat on my other side. Bolshy sat opposite us and I felt his eyes on me. There was still that hard, dark glossy finish to him – just like the Number 10 door. The PM coughed loudly. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as this is a purely informal gathering, I will dispense with the usual honorifics. Welcome to my humble abode.’ It was delivered deadpan and from the bored expression on the foreign minister’s face, I knew Marvell must have used that feeble joke a million times before.

  ‘I have, I think, met all of you before, including our special guest Mr Jonathan Bligh, the editor of that esteemed organ, UK Today. But I have not had the great pleasure of talking to him at any great length before now but hope to do so today. It will be enlightening to hear his unique insights about our great country where he once distinguished himself – at the expense of one of my predecessors!’

  Marvell was alluding to the big scoop that I had uncovered as a reporter on the Daily Tribune a few years before. It concerned an odious junior minister who, with his wife, had engaged in suburban swinger sex parties using the pseudonyms ‘Josephine and Bony-part’. The sleazy story helped bring down the government of the time. I subsequently wrote the bestselling book Hard News about the whole saga that, in turn, was made into a movie.

  As everyone laughed politely, the PM continued, ‘As I said, this is an informal affair, indeed a festive celebration, so feel free to ask questions or venture opinions as you see fit. I would make it clear, to keep Barry’s blood pressure in check, that we abide by the Chatham House Rule.’ Which meant we were free to use anything said during the luncheon but barred from revealing who said it.

  I knew that Marvell was an old school patrician Tory. He came from proud Yorkshire stock, his family having been titans of the wool industry for generations; his father still chaired a large manufacturing company based in Leeds. It was generally felt that Marvell was a decent man but his ambitious wife Cassandra was the one to beware of. Just then I felt a hand on my arm. Mrs Rawlings (she should really be called Mrs Drawlings with her soft, slow southern accent) said, ‘Ah have not had the pleasure of reading your books, but ah sure did enjoy your movie, Mr Bligh.’ She pronounced it ‘Blaaagh’.

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Shit, that sounded like Black Mac talking to Martha. I told her I was a southern boy myself – from Sans Souci, one of Sydney’s southern suburbs. She was charmed when I told her it was French for ‘No worries’ – the Australian motto. Putting her small hand on my arm again, she leaned forward in a cloud of flor
al fragrance: ‘Why Jonno –’ we were now Kitty and Jonno, ‘– that is truly a charming story. I come from Louisiana and we have many names there à la française.’

  After the first course (a murky mulligatawny soup), the more serious conversation began. The Home Office minister Devereux looked over and said with a smug smile, ‘Mr Bligh, perhaps you could tell us about the terminal disease afflicting the once mighty newspapers and whether there is any possible remedy?’

  You supercilious shit, I thought. But I smiled as I replied: ‘As the former journalist Mark Twain might have put it: the reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.’

  Mrs Rawlings beamed at that.

  ‘So, you are saying that there is hope for the print media despite plunging circulation and advertisers flocking to your digital rivals?’

  I felt Bolshy’s eyes on me and I paused to take a sip of the tepid New Zealand white.

  ‘What I’m saying is that, while there continue to be political scandals and shenanigans both at home and abroad, while there are power-crazy businessmen like Berlusconi and others leading their countries into chaos, and while there are mindless terrorists stalking the world, there will be a place for the Press. The fact is our online colleagues simply cannot match the quality and depth provided by our experienced watchdogs. And I firmly believe we will play an important role in monitoring and analysing the ever-increasing dangers to democracy.’

  You sound like a pompous twat, I told myself.

  ‘Oh well said, Jonno!’ the Prime Minister said, smiling and clapping his hands. I looked at my Russian master. He too gave a short, soft clap.

  Ambassador Rawlings said, ‘Do I detect a veiled reference to President-elect Charles Connor in your remarks, Mr Bligh?’ There was no hint of censure in his voice. I took it to mean he also had reservations about his new boss.