The Trade Off: a Novel, page 21
“He wants to prove that The Globe wasn’t a contributory factor in Yasmin taking her own life.”
I can’t help but laugh. “It wasn’t merely a contributory factor; it was the sole reason.”
“That may be so, but Peter wants to make it look like she had a myriad of problems beforehand, which she couldn’t see her way past.”
“There is nothing in this world that would make me do that,” I say, unable to believe what Stella’s asking of me. Just when you think the tabloid press can’t stoop any lower, the bar is placed on the ground. “I didn’t share what Yasmin said because she spoke to me in confidence, and I wasn’t prepared to break her trust. I’ve beaten myself up ever since, knowing that if I had, then perhaps you wouldn’t have felt the need to run the photos. But if you think I’m going to share it now…”
“Peter’s assigned me with the task of making sure you do,” says Stella.
For some illogical reason I expect her face to break into a grin, because otherwise her loaded words could be wholly misconstrued. When it doesn’t, a chill runs through every nerve in my body.
“Are you … are you threatening me?” I manage, unable to stop myself from falling into the chair behind me.
“I’m just saying that’s what he’s asked me to do.”
“And if I don’t cooperate?”
Stella lets out a heavy sigh. “Then I’m to employ whatever tactics I need to ensure that you do.”
I stare at her, trying to see past the perfectly made-up veneer through to the inner layers of her moral fiber as I desperately search for a semblance of conscience. But if Stella has one, it’s impossible to see it.
“So even though you know what you know, you’re still his bitch.”
Her eyes narrow. “I didn’t say I was prepared to do what he asked, did I?”
“Well, let me make it easy for you,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “You may as well shoot me now, because if the likes of Ray McAllister can’t take you on and win, then I’m sure as hell destined to fail.”
Stella’s eyes flicker involuntarily before she slumps into Max’s chair, desperately trying to make it look like she’s in control of her body. But for those few short seconds, she’s anything but. Her limbs don’t appear to belong to her, and her top lip is suddenly glistening with a sheen of sweat.
“Wh-what do you know about him?” she manages.
“Well, I understand McAllister’s been residing at His Majesty’s pleasure,” I say, gleaning what I remember from the hasty Google search I ran, on the way back from Menzies’s place. “Because of what you did to him.”
Stella swallows and looks at me with a set jaw. “He got what he deserved.”
“But you and I know that’s not true, and so does he,” I say, unable to stop myself smirking. “I wouldn’t like to think what his intentions are, now that’s he out.”
I watch as every sinew and muscle in her long neck twitches, satisfied that I’ve finally found the chink in her armor.
“You surely can’t be surprised,” I say. “You completely fabricated the evidence against him. Swore under oath that he was the proven mastermind behind a plot to kidnap the prime minister, all the while knowing that you’d set up the whole thing to entrap him.”
She laughs inanely. “Do you have any idea how insane you sound right now?”
I stare at her unflinchingly.
“So you think I needed a story so badly that I would manufacture an outlandish scenario between the incoming prime minister and one of London’s most feared criminals?”
“You didn’t just manufacture it, you manipulated it, moment by moment, to fit the grotesquely warped narrative that you wanted to portray.”
Stella runs her tongue around her top teeth, her mouth clearly devoid of moisture, and I revel in her discomfort.
“I wonder what The Post would do if they knew that you’d sent someone in to infiltrate McAllister’s gang, under the pretense of buying a stolen painting, only to implicate him in a kidnap plot he knew nothing about.”
Her expression is one of utter bewilderment and confusion. If nothing else, she’s a good actress, but she can’t fool me.
“Akin Demir did you proud, didn’t he?” I go on. “I hope you paid him well for putting his neck on the line, even more so when the police magically found the gun he’d planted in McAllister’s van.”
“Akin Demir was a small-town criminal who got in over his head,” rasps Stella. “That’s why he came to us with his story. McAllister’s plan scared him and he was looking for a way out.”
I smile, forcing away the tightening in my chest and the crushing realization that I might have got this all wrong.
“So you didn’t pay Trevor Menzies to find him?” I chance. “To supply the gun? To field back to you all the relevant information? So that you could be poised and ready at the allotted time with a SWAT team and a photographer?”
“What are you talking about?” she asks. “Trevor Menzies is a chauffeur—nothing more and nothing less.”
I nod. “True, he also drives hopeful actresses to their own funerals, but it’s supplying ex-convicts to infiltrate gangs and entrap them in kidnapping plots that seems to be the real moneymaker for him.”
“Good luck with proving that in a court of law,” says Stella, her faculties seeming to be slowly returning.
It’s the moment I’ve been waiting for, and I can’t help but smile. “I don’t think it will be too difficult,” I say. “Thanks to Trevor Menzies getting it all on tape.”
38
Stella
It’s gone 11 p.m. by the time Stella’s first issue as editor goes to press. It had been a cloak-and-dagger operation, with the news floor cleared of all but a skeleton staff, each personally selected for their discretion. It had been a nail-biting wait, not least because Stella needed to push it through without resistance, but also because she has somewhere she needs to be.
However, as she walks through the bowels of the Peckham estate, with gangs hooting and hollering at her, she’s wondering if it might have been wise to leave this visit until tomorrow morning.
But the thought of being able to sleep, with Jess’s words taunting and goading her, is about as likely as Jess sharing Yasmin Chopra’s final words in order to assuage Peter Kingsley. The only chance Stella has—not only of being able to close her eyes, but of going on living her life—is to hear it from Menzies himself; and to realize that Jess’s ludicrous allegations are born of nothing more than a desperate need to overturn everything Stella and Global International stand for.
Pulling up the collar of her trenchcoat, as if that will offer protection from the rowdy delinquents languishing in the stairwell of Hogarth House, Stella endures their jeers as she pushes her way through the middle of them.
“That’s a fancy bag,” says one as her grip on it tightens. “My sister would love that.”
“The lift’s broken,” another calls out, as she pushes the button once, twice, three times, willing it to hurry up.
“Thanks,” she says, hoping that her politeness will make them think twice about mugging her. Funny how your mind works when it’s under stress.
The crude fluorescent lights flicker ominously on and off as she climbs the concrete stairs, and every now and then she peers over the rails to check that no one is following her up.
She’s ever so slightly out of breath by the time she reaches the third floor and takes a few seconds to pull herself together. Not that it matters whether a faint line of sweat tracks her spine and darkens the underarms of her blouse. By the time she’s finished here, she’s sure to be sweating a whole lot more than that, but for now she smooths down her hair and applies her signature lip color, because without it she feels vulnerable.
The door to flat 314 is ever so slightly ajar and she tentatively pushes on it, retching at the smell that comes from beyond.
“Hello?” she calls out, into the still darkness.
Stepping into the hallway, Stella trails her hand along the wall, searching for a light switch.
“Is anybody here?” she says, hating her voice for sounding so feeble.
A noxious blend of urine and body odor assaults her nostrils, but there’s something else. Using the cuff of her coat as a futile barrier, she forces one foot in front of the other, her free hand flailing in the blackness for a sense of security.
Her foot comes up against something, stopping her from going any further. She can feel her hand trembling as she reaches out, not knowing what it will happen upon.
Just a ruler’s length away, there’s a closed door and as she instinctively searches for the handle, she wonders if this isn’t the point where she turns and runs. But she wants answers; she needs answers, and the only way she’s going to get those is by asking the questions.
Taking a deep breath, she pushes down hard on the handle, throwing the door open, and in that exact moment a rush of air comes toward her, the force of which she’s never felt before. A breathless roar rises up from deep within her as she is pushed backward, the power of it snatching her breath away. Stella thrashes out with all her might, as the silent and invisible force grapples with her, throwing her to the floor and kicking at her body aimlessly.
Curling into a ball to protect herself as the thuds continue, her senses are on high alert, listening, feeling, desperately wanting to see what’s going on. But then, as quickly as it started, it stops and her assailant moves wordlessly away, their heavy breaths fading into the distance.
Stella doesn’t move. She stays in a fetal position with her nose pressed into the foul-smelling carpet, waiting for a sign that whoever was here has now gone. She lifts her head up, praying that it’s only the drum of her own heartbeat that she hears.
With nothing but silence all around, she slowly and carefully pulls herself up against the wall. Is she still in the hallway or had she made it into the room with the closed door, before the blows rained down on her?
She winces as she sits up, instinctively holding a hand to the pain in her side. Her ribs scream as her fingers press against them and, for a second, she wonders if she’s been stabbed. She hesitantly feels for the warm wetness of blood, although there’s nothing but the pulsing agony of a beaten torso.
With a strength she hadn’t expected, her legs power her body up the wall and her arms stretch out to either side of her, still looking for that elusive light switch. When her right hand feels the familiar plastic casing, her fingers falter as she asks herself whether she really wants to see what is hiding in the darkness.
Feeling as if she’s about to pull the trigger on a gun, Stella silently counts to three and closes her eyes as the switch flicks on; she waits for a noise or movement to tell her what the threat level is, but the lack of either gives nothing away.
Squinting one eye open, Stella scans the debris that litters the room. The filthy green sofa has been slashed repeatedly, exposing the foam blocks that would once have made it comfortable; and the contents of the sideboard, which has been overturned, flutter in the brisk breeze that is snaking in through the broken windowpane.
She takes a deep breath, the bottom of which sends a searing pain through her rib cage, as she turns her head toward the darkest corner of the room, which is shrouded in shadows. She tiptoes over the drug paraphernalia that lies strewn across the floor and reaches out to turn the floor lamp on.
As the spotlight falls on the armchair, Stella stumbles backward, her legs turning to jelly as adrenaline floods her body. Bruised and bloodied, Trevor Menzies sits with his eyes half open and his head lolling.
“Fuck!” Stella rasps, pushing herself across the filthy floor.
With her breaths coming in short, sharp pants, she rummages in her bag and pulls out her mobile phone, jabbing at the screen with shaking fingers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she says, her voice trembling, as the line rings. “Pick up, please pick up.”
“Hello?” comes a voice.
“It’s me,” she says breathlessly. “We’ve got a problem.”
39
Jess
I ignore the ping of the first text—it’s still dark outside. But the second and third make me sit up against the headboard, squinting at the illuminated numbers on the screen.
“Five thirty?” I exclaim out loud, knowing that I won’t be able to get back to sleep again now. Messages and calls from a number I don’t recognize jolt me awake, filling me with a sense of impending doom.
I can’t believe what you’ve done … one starts. Sasha has gone into hiding … begins another.
I don’t need to read any more. I already know what’s happened and I have only myself to blame.
Getting out of bed, I grab yesterday’s clothes from where I left them over a chair and head into the kitchen, hopping into my knickers as I go. I click on The Globe’s app and the headline Singer cries rape fills the screen. Below is a picture of Sasha Peterson.
My ears are alight with the feeling they’re on fire, and my vision blurs, my eyes no longer able to focus on the images that I know are there.
“Fuck!” I exclaim, though I can’t pretend to be surprised.
There was a tiny part of me that thought—hoped—that the worm might be for turning. Stella had talked the good talk, and for a moment I felt she finally understood the threat that Peter Kingsley posed to women, but it was short-lived, any feelings of empathy and compassion quickly replaced by the all-encompassing need to protect him from the allegiance that she knew was forming. No wonder she demanded that I leave the office after our encounter: she needed me out of the way so that she could stonewall any attempt by Sasha to tell the truth.
I can’t even remember my journey into the office, my mind obsessively imagining Tilly Ashcroft, Sasha Peterson and all of Peter Kingsley’s other accusers waiting to greet me outside the Global International Tower. Tilly thought she could trust me. She told me her story because I gave her my word that I would treat it with sensitivity and work with her to bring down those who had done her wrong. But yet again, just like Yasmin, I have let her—and the others—down in the worst possible way.
Who am I to think I could take on an industry that’s getting more and more corrupt by the day? Believing that I could help turn it around and release the hundreds of people caught up in its widely cast net? I almost laugh at my naivety, questioning what I’m even doing heading back into the office at this ungodly hour. What’s the point?
As I emerge from the lift, the newsroom is cloaked in darkness, the dawn of a new week little more than an hour away.
I hear Peter before I see him, his voice carrying his anger from Max’s office. I stop, stock-still, behind a pillar.
“How the fuck could this have happened?” he yells. “You’ve made some monumental fuckups, Max, but this one…”
I stay where I am, knowing that I’ll be seen if I carry on walking toward my desk. I want to hear what they’re saying without them knowing I’m here, though from the wrath of Peter’s voice I doubt he’s able to rein in his temper for anybody’s benefit.
“Nobody will know who it’s alluding to,” says Max, sounding like he’s grasping at straws. “It could be anyone.”
“It’s not going to take a fucking rocket scientist to work it out, though, is it?” spits Peter.
“I-I really don’t think people will imagine it’s you for a moment,” falters Max. “Why would they?”
“Because apart from actually mentioning my name, you’ve printed every other known fact about me,” yells Peter. “Media tycoon, film-company owner, married man, three children—I mean, what the fuck?”
I can’t actually see him, but I can picture him pacing up and down Max’s office, manically rubbing his balding head.
“I’ve been shafted by my own fucking paper.”
“I’m sorry,” says Max, sounding panicked. “I just can’t understand how this has happened.”
“It’s personal and professional suicide. I’m done for.”
“I can assure you I’ll be looking into this,” says Max.
“Looking into it?” rages Peter. “This is your ship. You’re at the helm of this limping liner, but I swear to God, if either it or I go down, I’ll be taking you with me.”
“Oh, come on,” says Max, with a little more strength to his voice. “You can’t pin this on me. I wasn’t even here.”
“So where the hell were you?” demands Peter. “When my reputation was being fucked over.”
“I had to…” starts Max. “I had to attend to some business.”
“Some business?” repeats Peter disbelievingly. “What business could possibly be more important than making sure that I—the man who has the ability to make or break you—didn’t get his balls caught in a vice?”
Max sighs, and I risk peering round the pillar. He looks deathly pale and is wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “I had a problem I needed to deal with.”
Peter lets out a high-pitched fake laugh.
“I don’t know what Stella was thinking,” says Max. “I repeatedly told her to watch her step, to make absolutely sure her sources were watertight, but what with this, and the matter of that Yasmin woman, I think some serious decisions need to be made.”
Just hearing them mention Yasmin’s name makes me want to run in there and demand that they tell the world the truth, but then I remember the bounty that’s on my head to do exactly the opposite, and I stay where I am.
“So how big a problem could you possibly have had to make it worth abandoning the paper?” asks Peter, ignoring the slight against Stella.
“Bigger than you or I would like,” says Max.
There’s a loaded silence and I imagine them looking at one another, each of them waiting to see who will break the deadlock first.
“McAllister is back,” says Max eventually.
