Deadline

by Terence J. Quinn

  I grimaced at Shiv.

  She said, ‘Sorry, minister, but it is a spanking good story, pardon the pun, and is costing the paper a lot of money. I think the editor needs a return on his investment.’

  ‘If it’s a question of money –’ Devereux started.

  ‘Don’t go there, minister,’ I said. ‘Think about it … if you were to pay that nice Mr Payne the money, that would raise the stakes to blackmail or extortion and both you and he would be in deeper trouble. And that would give us an even better story.’

  I knew what would come next. Threats. It was standard operating procedure for the rich and powerful. And, sure enough, a savage growl came down the line. ‘Listen, you little shit – I’ll sue. My lawyers are absolute rottweilers. They’ll rip you and your scummy rag to pieces if I say the word. We’ll shut you down.’

  Shiv shook her head. This was getting boring. Time to end it.

  ‘Marcus, I’m busy. And frankly, I’m more scared of my reporter than I am of your legal mongrels. Now, I gotta go. Got a paper to get out. Big story to break tomorrow. The headline is: “THREE-LINE WHIP FOR ‘FAMILY VALUES’ MINISTER”. Good night.’ I winked at Shiv and we both held our breath.

  ‘Hold on!’ There was a pause.

  I waited.

  Devereux exhaled noisily. ‘Jonno. Is there anything I, uh, could do you for you in exchange for keeping the story out? You probably know I used to be in the Whips’ office?’ There was a muffled curse and then he said ruefully, ‘Okay, that sounded silly in the circumstances but it does mean I have juicy information on lots of other, high-profile people in Parliament that would be a lot more interesting to your readers than my, erm, little indiscretions. What do you say, old chum?’

  Shiv and I bumped fists. His offer was not surprising, in fact, we’d been counting on it. Trade-offs were de rigueur for politicians caught with their boxers around their bony ankles.

  ‘Well, Marcus, funny you should mention it,’ I said, smiling at Shiv. ‘What do you know about the Prime Minister, the oligarch and the financial bail-out of a certain manufacturing company in Leeds?’

  * * *

  As Shiv and I headed out to the newsroom, we found Mrs H sobbing in her small office outside my door. She was bent over her desk and dabbing her red eyes.

  ‘What is it, Mrs H? Has someone upset you?’

  My PA looked up, her face full of sadness and shock. ‘It’s Bill Todd. He’s dead.’

  ‘What! How?’ An immediate sense of guilt seized me. Was this down to me? By firing him? Todd was a prick but that didn’t mean I wanted him to die.

  In between sobs, Mrs H said that she had decided to pick up my office keys from my ex-deputy on her way home the previous night. ‘I was so worried over that incident with Mr Macrae that I thought I’d make sure it was done. I rang his mobile to make sure he would be there. But his wife Isobel answered his phone and she was hysterical.’

  I pictured the pinched-looking woman in the photo frame in what used to be Bill Todd’s office.

  ‘What did she say?’ Shiv asked.

  ‘She’d been at her sister’s place in Dorset for a few days. Got back this morning and found him dead.’

  Jeez. ‘Was it a heart attack? An accident of some sort?’

  ‘The poor man had been hanging from a beam in the garage for two days.’

  PART THREE

  Journalists are like whores. As high as their ideals might be, they still have to resort to tricks to make money.

  Pierce Thorne

  48

  PERHAPS IT was the combined impact of the memorial service and the news of Todd’s death, but Annie was quieter, less combative, at breakfast the next morning. I had already performed my ritual study of the other papers and was pondering the death of my erstwhile deputy. Some residual guilt gnawed away at me. But something didn’t feel right. Suicide? Come on! In my view, Todd was too much of a narcissist to do himself in. But if he hadn’t, that could only mean he was murdered.

  Annie interrupted my deliberations. ‘So, what do you think? About the book, I mean,’ she said with a shy smile.

  Book? What book? What was she talking about? I spooned some Weetabix into Percy’s mouth to give me some time to work out the question. Then it came back to me: last night Annie had mentioned something about her therapist encouraging her to write a memoir about her awful experiences with the pirates. But shamefully I must have dozed off while she was still talking. If I remembered correctly, she’d been both excited and intimidated by the idea.

  ‘Won’t it stir up a lot of bad shit? I mean, it was an awful time for you. Shouldn’t we be looking forward, not back?’ I finally said, heart in mouth.

  ‘Well, I think it’s a bloody good idea!’

  Both Annie and I looked at Posh in surprise. She usually kept out of our personal conversations.

  She looked embarrassed but carried on: ‘Look, I’m just saying that women’s voices need to be heard. Those scumbags treated Annie like a piece of meat. She ought to speak out about it. Bloody men should not be allowed to get away with it.’ Posh’s face had gone the same colour as her magenta hair.

  Annie smiled at her and then turned back to me. ‘Maddy thinks it will help me deal with some unresolved issues. Cathartic, she said. Worries that I might have repressed some stuff.’ Her lovely face clouded. ‘Y’know – on the beach? That’s why I still have flashbacks and the occasional nightmare. I think she might be right. But I’m not sure I could actually write a whole book. It must be hard, right?’

  Not so hard for a journalist, I thought. Words are our world. I’d managed to write my second book Dire Strait – the title referred to the Strait of Malacca, where the pirates attack ships and where Annie was abducted – in a mere one hundred days. But that was largely because, after Annie had jilted me in Jakarta and gone back to England, I had nothing better to do than get my head down and spew it out.

  ‘Look, love, you did English at uni and you were an advertising copywriter. That says you can write.’

  ‘Yeah, advertising bullshit maybe – snappy slogans and mindless marketing messages. A far cry from writing a book.’

  ‘So is writing a five-hundred-word tabloid page lead versus a hundred-thousand-word blockbuster. I managed the leap, so will you. I’ve seen some of your stuff – it’s bloody good. Well, you can’t spell for shit but the basic style is fine.’

  Annie snorted and slapped my arm.

  ‘But if you want my honest opinion,’ I continued, ‘it’s not the words you’ll have a problem with, it’s the memories. Do you really want to revisit all the nastiness on that God-forsaken island? Remember, I was there. I saw the state they left you in.’

  Posh flashed more daggers at me from those fierce, kohl-ringed eyes. I sighed and suggested that she might like to clean up Percy and take him out for a stroll in his buggy. Although Posh had become part of our little family, I didn’t want any more interjections from her on this subject. Scowling and swearing under her breath, the nanny extricated Percy from his high chair and stomped out of the kitchen.

  I grabbed another piece of toast and slathered it in Vegemite. Annie looked pensive, as if her mind was in a distant place. Probably several thousand miles away on Rehab Island, to be precise.

  Then her eyes cleared and she nodded. ‘I hear what you’re saying but I’ve decided I want to do it. Not just for me, but Maddy thinks it will help other victims. I’d get some strength from that.’

  I hugged her.

  ‘Will you help me?’ she said in my ear. ‘After all, it’s a well-known fact that my sainted husband is a world-famous wordsmith who has written two blockbusters and wowed them at the Oscars.’

  ‘Any more sarcasm and you’re on your own,’ I laughed. ‘Of course I’ll help, my love. Maybe it will be good for us both. We can confront those “unresolved issues” together.’

  Annie smiled gratefully and changed the subject. ‘Busy day ahead?’

  ‘Yeah, just for a change.’ I told her about
Marcus Devereux. And Barbara Scaife, the woman who had fallen from the rocks in Yorkshire.

  ‘Oh my God! The poor woman. Was it an accident?’

  ‘At first it seemed so. But Shiv O’Shea now reckons it could be something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The police said they were pursuing another line of inquiry: that two men had been seen on the Cow and Calf around the same time and that suspicious marks had been found on Barbara’s body. And her backpack was missing.’

  Annie looked at me, her mouth open. ‘Are you saying she was pushed over?’

  ‘I’m saying it still could have been an accident … but given what she was working on, it’s possible someone wanted her silenced.’

  ‘Jesus, Jonno. You mean she was killed because of a story? What kind of story would result in a brutal murder?’

  I took a deep breath and told Annie about the Marvell family business, the Russian bank loans and the suspicions Shiv and I had about Bolshy. She was suitably astonished: ‘My God, Heather was right – he is dodgy! But murder? And our Prime Minister is – what? A traitor?’

  ‘Trust me, I hope I’m wrong. But that reminds me … have you been keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious while you’re out and about?’ It wasn’t easy to forget that we also had the threat of violent death hanging over us, thanks to those jihadi jokers, the Movement of Martyrs.

  49

  NEWS IS a fickle business. There are slow-slow news days when nothing much happens and then there are go-go news days when all hell breaks loose. Today was a go-go day. Ray Griffiths looked cocky when he distributed his newslist at the morning conference. ‘Boss, you’re going to like this,’ he said smugly. ‘You’re going to like it a lot.’

  And I did. Besides a news spread on the following day’s US presidential inauguration in Washington DC, there were two domestic hot-ticket items, both exclusives. The first was hot all right, but the second was downright explosive.

  The first took us back to the Whitechapel murders. The police had a suspect in custody. ‘Picked him in a dawn raid this morning,’ Griffo said. ‘They really like him for it. His name is Steven Tansey. Got a bit of previous – beat up a tart at Kings Cross last year. His ex-wife’s got an AVO out on him. And he’s known around the East End massage parlours as a pest.’

  ‘How come we have it exclusive?’ I asked.

  ‘The arrest or the name won’t be. Or, at least, probably not. The cops can’t promise to keep it quiet. You know how these things work – the opposition will get a sniff before too long. They’ll be camped outside the nick by lunchtime.’ At this point, Griffo smiled in satisfaction. ‘But the thing is, boss … we got pictures. Good ones. And exclusive.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘We got a tip-off that Tansey was being picked up at his housing estate in Stepney and told to be at the Limehouse nick, where he was being taken for questioning.’

  ‘Limehouse? That’s not far from here, is it?’

  ‘Yes. Two minutes up the road. The cops did the old perp parade routine with our boy Steven.’

  If the police make an important bust and want maximum credit, sometimes they tip the press off in advance that they’re bringing someone in. And then, at the police station, instead of taking the suspect straight into an underground car park with a coat over his head, they’ll bring him out into the open and walk him slowly from the car to the door so pictures can be taken from outside the police compound. Sometimes they do the same routine at the courts.

  ‘But I thought we were persona non grata with Mulroney and the Met after the Pantsgate affair? Why would they give us a break like that?’

  ‘That bastard Mulroney was kicked off the case after the shitstorm that followed our story. And his mate Dirty Danby got thrown off the Force, thanks to Juggs. New Scotland Yard put some hotshot chief inspector on it and she reckoned she owed us one. Goes without sayin’ that she thinks we’ll give her a big leg-up in the paper in return. Star billing and all that.’

  I looked at the photo grabs. ‘This is the guy who killed those poor hookers?’

  ‘Allegedly killed them,’ Griffo corrected.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly look like a monster. More like the guy next to you at a footy match. How did they get him?’

  ‘He tried to murder another prostitute in Shoreditch. She would’ve been his fourth victim but he was interrupted by another working girl and her john. Tansey ran off but the woman he’d attacked, although badly injured, was able to provide a good description. Turns out Tansey is thirty-four and married. He’s a brickie.’

  ‘Bet he’s bricking himself now!’ Mike Kelly, the night editor, said.

  ‘Got a wife, two kids,’ Griffo continued. ‘We’re up at his estate right now trying to find the family. Hopefully we’ll get there before the cops and whisk ’em away to a hotel so the other media monkeys can’t get to ’em.’

  ‘Okay, mate, not bad for starters. What’s the main dish?’

  Griffo’s smile got even wider. ‘This is a beauty, boss. You know Micky Sardar? He’s a regular casual?’

  I shook my head. UK Today, like most big papers, had many casuals – reporters and subs – coming in and out of the office most nights. I couldn’t possibly keep track of them all. These casuals – mostly young hopefuls trained on the regional dailies – might work a shift at two or three different papers in a given week while trying to land a permanent position at one of them. It was almost like the casting call for a big movie.

  ‘His name’s Mikal but we call him Micky. He’s a Muslim. Nice lad. Good operator. Definitely one to watch. Been doing shifts here for about four months. Comes from Leicester.’

  ‘Never mind the personal bio, what’s the bloody story about?’ I said.

  ‘He used to go to some big Islamic school up there. His brothers still do. The place gets big government grants. Like a million quid a year or something. Been getting ’em for years. Anyway, young Micky gets a tip that some of the school governors are concerned that a lot of that money is unaccounted for.’

  ‘What, someone’s nicked it? Embezzled it?’

  ‘No, boss. Better. The word is – fuck me, you won’t believe this.’ Griffo’s eyes gleamed. ‘It seems it’s gone to terror groups. Hard-core Islamic fundamentalists. Including – honest to God – those ISIS nutters. Un-fucking-believable!’

  For several moments all the news execs around the table just looked at each other in stunned silence. Even the Meerkat – normally unimpressed by anything we did – looked amazed.

  Eventually, I cleared my throat and said, ‘Mate, are you seriously telling me that UK taxpayer money is being used to fund terrorists so they can kill British people?’

  ‘I knew you’d like it, boss!’

  50

  ANNIE ADORED her new morning ritual: the brisk thirty-minute walk down Kensington High Street and around the side of Kensington Gardens before skirting around the Royal Albert Hall, the Imperial College complex on her right, Princes Garden on her left, then past the Science Museum before arriving at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

  Be-gloved, be-hatted and be-scarfed against the raw temperatures, she strode by the ever-changing vista of stores, greenery and historic buildings, her legs and heart pumping. Some of the shops – M&S, Zara and H&M – still had January sales on. Seductive scents from a Starbucks tickled her nostrils as she went by.

  Walking past the tranquil Royal Park, she noticed a discreet sign for the Princess Diana Memorial Playground. Annie made a mental note to take Posh and Percy there soon. She relished the time it took her to walk to the V&A library. It enabled her to think about all sorts of stuff – her book project and her new life in the UK in particular. The truth was, with Jonno working every hour of every day, she had been feeling lonely. In Sydney they had done so much together every day. Now she was very much on her own. Jonno had suggested she hook up with some of her old colleagues from the advertising agency where she used to work before Martin got his new job in Australia. With every
thing that had happened since, she felt awkward about getting back in touch with former friends. So Maddy’s idea of putting her experiences down on paper was timely, as well as potentially cathartic. Heather Minto had suggested the V&A. She and Hamish owned a house nearby, and she occasionally went to the museum with her cronies for brunch and a browse.

  Besides, the museum was already familiar to her. She and Pascal had gone there when they’d first moved to London. But she’d been oblivious to the jewel in its crown – the handsome National Art Library on the first floor. Now she looked forward to her mornings working in its quiet, comfortable cocoon. Afternoons there were busier but she also liked to give Posh a break after lunch and enjoy some one-on-one time with Percy. The reverential hush of the light-filled, nineteenth century rooms with their dark wooden desks, green enamel reading lamps and spiral staircases felt like a safe sanctuary. She would close her eyes and breathe in the welcoming aroma of old books; she fancied she could feel the warm embrace of the ghosts of Victorian scholars and scribblers wrap around her.

  ‘It’s such an inspiring place to embark on my book,’ she’d told Jonno. A million times better than the apartment kitchen with Percy underfoot and Posh chattering away.

  At first, she had felt a bit of a fraud – the NAL was primarily a reference resource for students of fine and decorative arts. But quickly, she had found that many of the other users were similarly engaged in non-art-related activities. Mornings suited her best because the reading rooms were quieter. She would adjourn at ten-thirty am for a pot of English breakfast tea (and, if she was feeling naughty, a raisin scone with clotted cream and jam) in the exquisite Gamble Room downstairs, lured by the cheerful conviviality and glittering opulence of the ceramic, glass and enamel that adorned its walls, ceilings and pillars. The place reminded her of the authentic Parisian restaurants that Pascal had introduced her to.