1989, page 15
Rona sat down next to Allie and put an arm round her. ‘Why is Richardson trying so hard to pick a fight with you?’
‘Because I was never his choice. He always thought investigations was a waste of money. Weeks, sometimes months to stand something up that would only get a show in the paper for a couple of Sundays. So when Lockhart slashed the northern staff, Gerry wanted one of the lads to run the shop. It’s an open secret. It didn’t much matter which one. He wanted a yes-man who would churn out the sleaze and the crap to order.’ Allie sighed. ‘I thought the fact that it had been Lockhart who chose me was my insurance policy.’
‘So it was.’ Rona kissed her cheek. ‘Richardson knows he can’t fire you. So he’s decided to make your position untenable.’
‘Looks like it. But the trouble is, the big picture. This is the kind of story the editor wants to run with. He’s competing with Murdoch in the dash for the sewer. I’m not really the target here. I don’t flatter myself. Driving me out is the bonus. They’d be running this story regardless of whether I was in post or not.’ Allie tipped her head back and blinked a couple of tears out. ‘And if I don’t jump ship over this, it’ll be something else next week. And the week after. I’ve been kidding myself that I could thole it. But I can’t, Ro.’ She buried her face in Rona’s shoulder and wept quietly.
They held each other for as long as it took Allie to collect herself. Then she straightened up and swiped her eyes dry with the back of her hand. ‘I never thought a soap star’s sex life was the beach I would die on,’ she said with a brave attempt at a laugh. ‘I’d better go and write that letter of resignation.’ She stood up. ‘So, the curtain comes down on my life in tabloid journalism.’
‘I think you’re maybe being a wee bit melodramatic there. You’re born to the breed, Allie. You might not write any more of this kind of shite. But you’re still going to find great stories and write them, and some of them might find a home in a red top. Never say never again, doll.’
‘Listen to you, Mr Bond. Right now, I can’t think of anything beyond telling Gerry Richardson where to stick his job. Only more eloquently.’
‘Go and do that,’ Rona said. ‘And by the time you’ve composed your nuclear warhead, we’ll be ready to figure out what comes next.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to do this over the ether. I want to see the look on his face when I stick it to him.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I can make the two o’clock from Piccadilly. I’ll catch him in the pub. He always takes a break for a sneaky Scotch before he delivers his close-of-play bouncers.’
‘Allie, no! You’re in no fit state to do this.’
‘Watch me.’
The Copy Taster was the perfect journalists’ pub. Tucked away in an alley off Fetter Lane, it was within a few minutes’ walk of Fleet Street itself, easily accessible to the hundreds of journalists who still worked around the fabled Street of Ink. The windows were stained glass, each piece too small to permit a view of the interior. Inside, it was panelled in dark wood with furnishings to match; a thin layer of smoke added to the colour palette. There were three separate bars, each of which had booths and half-hidden nooks where private conversations could be had. You could be feet away from your boss and not know it in the Copy Taster.
But Allie knew where she’d find Gerry Richardson at five o’clock on a weekday evening. He’d be in the Subs Bar, the farthest of the three from the door, tucked away in the second booth on the right, a large Bells in front of him. Not even a single malt, she’d thought with amused contempt when she’d first discovered what he drank.
It was a busy time in the pub, the air thick with smoke and gossip, and Allie had to squeeze and wince her way through, exchanging pleasantries, insults and inquiries about her bruises from several acquaintances. Refusing a couple of offers of drinks on the way, she pushed on to the Subs Bar. Her heart was pounding, the adrenaline coursing through her; she was grateful, knowing its benefits as a short-term painkiller.
Allie paused for a moment on the threshold, muttered, ‘Fuck it,’ under her breath and took the last few steps that brought her face to face with her boss. Richardson was flanked by the chief reporter and another of his cronies, heads close, voices low. It took a moment for them to register her presence and Richardson looked thunderstruck. ‘What the fuck?’ he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here, Burns?’
‘I wanted to make sure you couldn’t claim you’d fired me,’ she said, projecting her voice to cut through the hubbub.
‘What are you talking about?’ Richardson tried to stand up but he was trapped behind the booth’s table.
‘I resign, Gerry. I’m far too good a journalist to carry on working for an ignorant bigot who’s too stupid to realise how stupid he is. If brains were shit, Gerry, you’d be constipated. I’ve worked for some bloody good news editors over the years, and you’re so far from being one of them, you might as well be in fucking Australia.’
‘Are you pissed, Burns? Or are you off your face on drugs?’ he spluttered. ‘You come in here, talking seven shades of shit—’
‘I’ve never been more sober. I’m done, Gerry. You’ve fucked me over for the last time.’
The chief reporter sniggered. ‘That’s what you dykes need, a good fucking over.’
Allie rolled her eyes. ‘Really? Is that the best you can do? No wonder the subs have to rewrite your copy every week.’ She leaned her fists on the table. ‘I mean it, Gerry. I’ve won awards for my journalism, but I’m absolutely fucking positive I won’t win so much as a raffle under your leadership.’
Now there were a couple of cheers from staff on rival papers. ‘Let him have it, Burns. Both barrels,’ a Glasgow accent shouted.
‘You ungrateful bitch,’ Richardson shouted, two splashes of scarlet on his thin cheeks. ‘I fucking saved you from the scrapheap. And this is the gratitude I get?’
‘You didn’t save me. Lockhart told you to keep me on. It’s chapped your arse every day since.’
‘I told him you were a waste of fucking space, with your high-horse politics and your cunt-struck attitudes,’ he hissed.
Allie laughed. ‘Is this the bit where you tell me I’ll never work in this town again? Fuck off, Gerry. Away and take a flying fuck at a bag of nails.’
She turned on her heel and marched out, head high, to a chorus of cheers and applause. She knew it wasn’t a measure of how much she was liked but of how much Gerry Richardson was loathed. Right then, she couldn’t have cared less. This was an exit that would go down in hack legend, and that was enough.
25
It was late when Allie arrived home, tired and aching but still buzzing from her resignation. She collapsed next to Rona on the deep sofa that dominated their living room. Enough space for two to sprawl and a dog to curl up alongside. Rona had brought back a bottle of Lanson Black Label from the evening dog walk because this change was something to celebrate. Allie had phoned her from the train with the broad-brush version and she was desperate to hear the details of Allie’s confrontation. But Allie was making her wait. ‘Your news first,’ she insisted. ‘What did Lockhart say when you accepted?’
‘“Clever girl.” I told him I wasn’t a girl, I was a woman. He just laughed. On another day, he’d have gone ballistic.’
‘I think he puts on different personalities like other people put on clean clothes. The bullying, for example. He turns it up to the max when he thinks it’ll get him where he wants to be. But if he thinks bribery or charm will work better, like with you? He just slips his arms into the charming jacket. You think he calls the lovely Genevieve a clever girl?’ Allie chuckled.
‘Probably. And she probably lets him get away with it when it suits her. She’s a chip off the old block. I’ve seen her turn on a dime.’
‘You never said.’
‘Never came up. It was at a charity dinner, I was there doing a big puff piece about one of the donor companies. She was backstage, doling out the Lockhart charisma. Then the designer dress she was supposed to be wearing arrived and it was the wrong frock. It was too late to deliver the right one, and she turned like a viper. Someone from the charity ended up having to swap dresses with her and she was all sweetness and light again. It was an instructive moment.’ She topped up their glasses. ‘I wouldn’t want to mess with that lassie.’
‘We all might have to mess with her eventually. One day, all of us will be hers.’
Rona pulled a face. ‘Hopefully not any day soon. In the meantime – how are we going to work this out?’
‘When does he want you to start?’
‘The first Monday in March.’
‘You’re kidding? That’s less than a fortnight. Surely you’ve got jobs booked in after that?’
Rona shrugged. ‘He says he’s happy for me to fulfil any outstanding obligations. But he wants me in Glasgow, at my desk. He’s offering me a very generous relocation package, which is all the more generous since I’m planning on staying at Mum and Dad’s till we get things sorted out. Once we sell this place, we’ll have no trouble finding somewhere lovely in Glasgow.’
Allie sighed. ‘I’m going to miss you. The newsdesk secretary rang me to say Richardson’s insisting I work out my notice. All three months of it. But I’m not planning on knocking my pan in. I’m not running around the country day and night for him. I’ll do the absolute bare minimum. Less, if I can manage it.’
Rona chuckled. ‘What’s he going to do, after all? Fire you?’
‘Aye, right. I can get on with selling the house. At least I’ll have three months’ salary as a cushion while I figure out what I’m going to do next. And I can tee up some stories to nail down once I’m a free agent. Plus I’m still going to Berlin to chase down that drugs trials story.’
Rona chinked her glass against Allie’s. ‘Good on you. But he’ll never sign your expenses chit for that.’
Allie shrugged. ‘I can bankroll it myself. I’ll more than cover the outlay when I sell it on to a proper newspaper.’
They drank in silence, watching the flames of the gas fire, each lost in thought. Allie knew Rona was keeping her excitement tamped down for her sake. Just as she was doing the same with her fear. Hopefully they’d meet in the middle. Sooner rather than later.
The bloody printers had been stirring things up again in the Glasgow building. They’d got wind of the London plans to bypass compositors and have journalists type their stories directly into the computer system. The London print unions were still chastened by what Rupert Murdoch had done to them, but in Glasgow, the natives were always more restless. It had taken an appearance in the press hall by Lockhart himself to calm the bolshy bastards down.
He’d run through a smorgasbord of threats and sweet-talking promises, and finally the presses had rolled on time without too many hostages to fortune. Anyone would think they wanted the bloody paper to shut down, he thought as he stomped down the hall to his office.
He threw himself into his chair and called the kitchen. ‘Bring me macaroni cheese with crispy bacon,’ he demanded. ‘And garlic bread on the side. And a pint of Coke.’ And if he was still hungry, he’d have some of that delicious Scottish vanilla ice cream he had delivered from Fife.
There were a couple of items of mail on his desk. He picked them up and flicked through them. The usual crap. Until he reached the final item. It was a garish postcard featuring four smaller photographs around the central image of a tall clock tower. A red banner across the top read BIAŁYSTOK in thick black letters.
He felt a quickening of his pulse and a tightening across his forehead. With a sense of dread, he turned it over. The message was unequivocal and terrifying: YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE LEFT.
26
It was strange to wake up without Rona. It wasn’t that they were joined at the hip; they were often separated for a night or more by the demands of work. But she’d always known that Rona would return, and more or less when. This time, the house felt differently empty. The hanging space of Rona’s wardrobe was half empty, the shelves denuded of lingerie and sweaters. There was a faint lingering presence in the sheets and pillowcases, but only as Allie turned over, readying herself for sleep, when the ghost of Rona’s perfume assailed her. She’d never had a problem with her own company when she was single; it disturbed her that she’d finally discovered what loneliness meant.
Dealing with Gerry Richardson had been a relatively pleasant diversion. She delivered her schedules every Tuesday, with stories already assigned to freelances. When he tried to give her stories to run herself, she managed to knock them down. The more ridiculous ones she didn’t even bother to pursue. He’d tried to refuse her holiday leave in a typically vindictive move, but a quick call to her union rep had crushed that attempt to dust. Allie had been pleasantly surprised by the support from the Father of the Chapel, as the rep was archaically called. He’d suggested taking the Globe to an industrial tribunal for constructive dismissal. She’d vetoed that. ‘I want to be able to work again,’ she’d said. ‘But I appreciate the thought.’
A banging from outside reminded her that the estate agent’s board was due to go up that morning. Allie had been taken aback at how much the agent thought the house was worth, though he’d sounded a note of caution. ‘It may take a while, but you’ll eventually get your asking price, at the very least,’ he’d said. ‘Chorltonville is very distinctive – all these lovely Arts and Crafts houses built to individual designs. They’re not to everyone’s taste, but people who love them really love them. And you’ve made the garden very special. I can see that even in winter.’
Allie thought she would mourn the garden even more than the house. She’d never paid much attention to horticulture before they’d moved here. Her parents had a small back garden that featured a succession of garish flowering plants, and her flat in Glasgow had had no outside space. She’d never imagined turning into a keen plantswoman in her thirties, but she and Rona had embraced their large plot, and had taken to incorporating the gardens of stately homes into their Sunday hikes. They’d made notes and tracked down specialist nurseries. And now they were walking away from it all.
That day, it was Allie’s turn to pack her bags. She had an early afternoon flight to Berlin Tegel, the first stage of the investigation she’d been planning for what seemed ages. She’d tried to persuade Paul Robertson to talk to her in more detail about the aborted drug trial but the Edinburgh doctor had hung up on her. She couldn’t blame him, after the travesty the newsdesk had made of her AIDS story. In his eyes, she was the enemy who had tricked him into trusting her.
Thank goodness Jess had believed her when she’d explained what had happened. Fortunately she still had her original copy so she could show both Jess and Alix that it was she who had been betrayed, not them. Allie had spent time with Jess learning all she could about drug trials; even better, Jess had agreed to write to Colin Corcoran to ask whether he’d talk to Allie about Zabre Pharma’s groundbreaking use of East Germany for drug trials.
He’d replied saying he didn’t want to talk about his employer and risk getting into trouble. ‘Typical. No backbone,’ Jess had complained to Allie. ‘Have you got some cuttings that might persuade him you’re one of the good guys? Maybe one or two of those investigations you did? The less controversial ones, obviously.’
‘I thought they were all controversial,’ Allie muttered. ‘OK, I’ll sort out something anodyne from my back catalogue.’
‘And I’ll send him the Little Weed story, play on his sympathy a bit.’
And somehow, it had worked. Something Jess had sent him had changed Colin Corcoran’s mind. He called her the night after Rona had left for Glasgow. It had been the one thing that had lifted her spirits that day.
She’d expected him to be gung-ho about Zabre’s research programme, but instead, he’d been hesitant and laconic. When she’d asked about the AIDS drug trial, he’d been non-committal. Now Allie feared she might be wasting her time and that she’d have to find another source if she was going to get anywhere. But then he’d said, ‘If you’re ever over in Berlin, I’ll give you the full tour.’
It had been completely unexpected but Allie seized the moment. Trying not to sound over-enthusiastic, she told him she was planning to visit Berlin very soon. He sounded pleased. ‘I don’t get many visitors,’ he said, suddenly shy. ‘Could you maybe bring me some HP sauce? I can’t get it here for love nor money.’
Allie wrapped the bottle carefully in a plastic bag and stuck it inside a sock. If this was all it took to win over Colin Corcoran, it would be the cheapest door-opener she’d ever managed.
Dr Frederika Schroeder poured three glasses of beer and raised hers in a toast. ‘To Wallace Lockhart’s fortune.’ Her two companions grinned and clinked their glasses against hers. Hans Weber and Berndt Fischer were her wingmen, the trusted lieutenants in the radical Green movement that had been carefully forging links with their opposite numbers in the East. Change was coming; Fredi could feel it in her bones, and she was determined to be leading the charge when it arrived.
They’d come from a meeting at an artists’ cooperative near their office in West Berlin. It had been a gratifying audience, whipped up to enthusiasm by Fredi’s charismatic performance. With her shock of blond hair and her long legs that strode back and forth on the platform, she looked as exciting as she sounded. Both men were sufficiently under her spell to have reluctantly accepted that they’d never be her lovers; Fredi invariably spoke of sex with men in tones of dismissive amusement.
They were wrestling with a thorny problem – how to fund the Green revolution. By its nature, they didn’t have natural sponsors among the German industrial complex. The likes of BMW and Siemens saw them as the enemy. Even the few companies who claimed to care about the environment were reluctant to fund Fredi and her colleagues. But now, there seemed to be a pinprick of light on the horizon in the shape of Genevieve Lockhart.
