1989, page 5
‘So I told her she should speak to you,’ Alix said. ‘It’s not right that people have to run away to get treatment. Plus, frankly, they’re taking up beds that local people need just as badly. It’s not like we’ve got any shortage of sick people round here.’
Butler shook his head. ‘I don’t discriminate on the basis of where people are from. Our patients are referred by local GPs and clinics. We assess them and we admit them when we have a bed on the basis of how ill they are. It’s not my job to make judgements about other facilities.’
‘Aye, but you know all about it,’ Jamesie interrupted. ‘You know because we’ve all told you how shit it is in Edinburgh. It took bloody ages for them to set up needle exchanges. The longer they held out, the more of us got infected from shared needles. And when it comes to getting off the drugs? Jeez. Don’t get me wrong. There’s some doctors and nurses working their arses off to help us. But there’s a hell of a lot more who wish we’d just crawl into a corner and die. They fucking hate us.’
Butler ostentatiously looked at his watch. He sighed. ‘I can give you fifteen minutes. But I’m warning you, any sign that you’ve got a hidden agenda and you’re out that door a lot faster than you came in.’ He turned abruptly on his heel and marched out of the ward. Allie raised her eyebrows at Alix and followed him.
He led her briskly down a corridor and unlocked the door at the very end. It led into a small turret room filled with light from a pentagonal bay with high windows. The other walls were lined with shelves crammed with books, folders and sheaves of loose papers. A desk was set side on to the bay. At one end was a pile of files, but the rest of the surface was clear. Butler waved Allie to a visitor’s chair sitting at an angle to the desk, back to the watery winter sunlight. ‘I have to keep it locked,’ he said. ‘These files are confidential. Nobody wants their HIV status to be public property.’
‘I get that. Can you give me an idea of the scale of the exodus from Edinburgh?’
He shook his head. ‘A lot of the information we get is anecdotal, but it’s a significant number. We’re seeing a few dozen, and that’s only the ones that are making it as far as us. Multiply that by other cities with a fair-sized gay community . . .’ He spread his hands. ‘And every one of them is a vector for the disease. What I hate is you lot blaming people for getting sick. We’re all careless of our lives in one way or another. It’s just that some of us have worse outcomes than others.’
Allie bit back a defensive retort. ‘Is that where the “Don’t jack up with a Jock” came from?’
It was as if she’d flipped a switch. His eyebrows lowered, his expression darkened. ‘Is that what this is about? Making us look as prejudiced as the rest?’
Realising she’d mis-stepped, Allie responded quickly. ‘Quite the opposite. The fact that you never ran with it told me all I needed to know about your attitudes here. But the fact it was even mooted indicated that there were a lot of Scots arriving on your doorstep.’ In an attempt at diversion, she added, ‘What happens to them when they get down here?’
‘They’re generally in free fall. They struggle to find somewhere to live. With no address, they can’t sign on for social security. So they end up stealing or dealing or resorting to prostitution. And then they get sick.’ Butler sighed heavily. ‘They hear about us on the grapevine sooner or later.’
‘How many beds have you got here?’
There was no humour in his smile. ‘Fifteen.’
‘And how many do you need?’
‘It doesn’t matter, does it? Nobody’s going to wave a magic wand and give us another fifty. We’re not even the Cinderella service. We’re the ugly sisters.’
‘How did you get into this?’
He shook his head. ‘You said this isn’t about this clinic. So don’t try to make it about me.’
Allie held up her hands in surrender. She could always look him up in the office copy of the Medical Directory if she needed more background. ‘What about medical research? Are they making progress? Are you working with any of the pharmaceutical companies?’
Butler ran a hand through his thick dark hair, leaving it in an untidy crest. ‘We’re not big enough. We wouldn’t give them the statistically significant results they need. I know there were some trials going on in Edinburgh, but I don’t know what happened.’
‘What do you mean, what happened?’
He shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. They just stopped.’
7
Rona looked puzzled. ‘They just stopped? What does that mean? Is your Doctor Butler out of the loop? Or is there more to it than that?’
‘I don’t know. I was hoping Jess might be able to help me out, but she’s gone off to Holland to see whether she wants to join this new team over there.’ Allie took a brick of chilli con carne from the freezer and dropped it into a small casserole dish. While it spun slowly in the microwave, she grated cheese into a bowl.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Rona asked, rummaging in the bread bin for a couple of pittas.
‘I can either wait for Jess to come back or I can go up to Edinburgh and do some digging there. The thing is, with what I’ve got already from Butler and the three Edinburgh patients I eventually got to speak to, I’ve got enough for a great page lead. I might as well run with that now.’
‘Really? It sounds to me like there might be a much better story lurking beneath the surface of the cancelled drugs trials.’
Allie put the block of cheddar back into the fridge, ignoring Germaine’s eager nose prodding her leg. ‘No, dog, you’ve had your dinner.’ She absently leaned down, scratched the dog’s head and turned back to Rona. ‘A bird in the hand, though. The drugs trials thing might be a damp squib. Plus, if I’ve got my byline on a story with a positive spin about AIDS patients, there’s more chance of people thinking I’m on their side and talking to me.’
‘Good point. By the way, I was talking to a senior executive on one of Lockhart’s magazines today. There’s muttering in the undergrowth that he’s planning big production changes in the newspaper empire.’ Rona took a couple of broad bowls from the cupboard and laid them on the kitchen table with forks and spoons.
‘What sort of changes?’
‘The rumour is that he’s bought a building south of the Thames and he’s installing a new line of presses, kitted out for direct input by journalists.’
Allie gave a low whistle as she took the chilli out of the microwave and dished it up. ‘How very Ace. He let Rupert Murdoch fight the war and beat the print unions into submission. And now he comes along in Murdoch’s wake and dips his bread in the gravy. It was only a matter of time, once he’d turned Manchester into a satellite printing operation instead of a proper newspaper office. The printers know they’re beaten before they start. There’ll be no strikes this time.’
‘At least you’re safe. You’re the last one standing. He can’t cut you.’ They sat down to eat.
‘More’s the pity, I think some days. I hardly have the time to chase my own stories. And I’m always on the front line when the big stories break. Take Lockerbie. I drove there the night the plane blew up and I was there pretty much constantly till the memorial service. And then four days later, another plane dropped out of the sky on to the M1. And because they’re short-staffed too, London decides my patch extends all the way down to the bottom of the East Midlands. And I’m back in the thick of another mass bereavement, leading the team, doing the key interviews. In the firing line when the opposition gets something we missed. Back when we had a team of reporters, at least the shit got shared out,’ Allie grumbled.
‘You used to complain that the Lone Ranger dumped on you more than anybody else,’ Rona reminded her.
Allie gave a wry smile. ‘Moaning about your news editor is compulsory. But the Lone Ranger did enjoy fucking with our private lives more than most. God help you if you mentioned it was your anniversary or your kid’s carol concert. You’d be guaranteed a trip to the sticks. “Go straight to Scunthorpe, do not pass go, do not collect £200. Just book yourself into some scabby hotel and await instructions.” He was a shit. But at least he was an even-handed shit.’
‘I never thought I’d hear you being wistful about him. What was it you said to him that time he sent you to mid-Wales on my birthday?’
Allie grinned. ‘“I hope your next shite’s a hedgehog.” I slammed the door, too. He just laughed.’
‘You do have more freedom now, though. The London newsdesk can’t keep tabs on you the same way. When you answer your pager, you could be anywhere. You could just go off to Edinburgh and chase your drug trials story and they’d be none the wiser till you’d nailed it down.’
Allie ate in silence for a couple of minutes. ‘That’s all well and good till they tell me to be in Barnsley in forty minutes . . .’
‘Just do it, Allie. There could be a really good story there. You’ve got your “Scots escaping AIDS” story in your back pocket to cover you if the desk does find out you’re in Edinburgh when they expect you to be here. You know it’ll just eat away at you if you don’t chase it down.’
She was right, Allie thought. The idea that there might be something worth investigating about the drug trials had already triggered her investigative instincts. If she was going to start ignoring those feelings, she might as well throw away her notebook and take up cross-stitch. ‘I’ll write a draft tonight to cover my back. And I’ll head up there in the morning.’
8
Although the new printing plant Ace Lockhart was building was emphatically without frills, he had not stinted on his own quarters. They had been completed first, ahead of the installation of the press lines or the newsroom. His office was large and airy, and beyond it, he’d installed a lavish dining room with rich wooden panelling and a gleaming walnut table with a dozen matching chairs. It was served by a kitchen that would have satisfied a Michelin-starred chef, with its plancha, its salamander and its hanging array of copper pans. There were only four hours in the day – 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. – when there was no chef on duty to cater to the whims of Ace Lockhart’s appetite. He was as likely to demand cheesy beans on toast as lobster thermidor. Staff turnover was already high.
Whenever Genevieve came to dinner, however, the table was dressed to impress. Ever since he’d been widowed, Ace believed it was his job to make sure his daughter was never deprived of what a mother would have provided. That evening, they’d started with chicken liver pâté and Melba toast, and Ace’s butler had just sliced through the golden pastry shell of a Beef Wellington to reveal steak cooked perfectly medium rare, as Ace decreed it should be. They waited in silence while the butler served the steak and placed chafing dishes of dauphinoise potatoes and crisp battered courgettes in front of them.
As her father loaded his plate, Genevieve took a mouthful of the Château Lynch-Bages he’d chosen to accompany their meal. Not so much Dutch courage as something to moisten her dry mouth. He wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. ‘I was wondering,’ she began, then tailed off.
An interrogative raise of the eyebrows opposite. ‘Unless you spit it out, you’ll remain in a state of wonderment,’ Lockhart said through a mouthful of food.
‘It’s been more than a month since you borrowed the pension fund cash to pay for the New York Globe. Do you have any sense of when you might be able to start repayments?’
He chuckled indulgently. ‘What? You think I’m going to welsh on the arrangement, Genny?’
‘Of course not. I’m just a little uncomfortable about the position. We do have a Pythagoras Press audit coming up in a few months and I don’t want awkward questions being raised.’
He shrugged. ‘Inter-company loans happen all the time, there’s nothing to concern the auditors.’
They concentrated on their food for a couple of minutes. Then Genevieve said, ‘This isn’t an inter-company loan, though. The pension fund is a separate entity.’
Lockhart shook his head. ‘The pension fund belongs to me, as much as the companies do. Where do you think the money came from?’
‘A lot of it came from the employees.’ It was a stark truth that it took some nerve to point out.
‘And they trust the pension fund will invest it wisely. Lending it to me is about as wise as you can get.’
She felt at a disadvantage now. Genevieve knew her own business inside out, but Pythagoras Press was only one part of the empire. Although he’d promised that one day it would all be hers, she wasn’t privy yet to the financial details of Ace Media. She knew there had been moments when the ice had been thin beneath her father’s feet, but he had an uncanny skill for turning things around. And he’d always turned his critics’ words against them when she’d questioned him. Really, she had no reason to doubt him. ‘I suppose so,’ she said.
'Stop fretting about this, Genny.’ He cut the remains of his steak into small pieces. ‘There are more important matters to be concerned about.’
‘Is that why I’m here tonight, Ace?’
He bestowed a gracious smile on her. ‘You know I always delight in your company. But as it happens, I do have something to share that concerns you.’
‘That sounds intriguing.’ She took a last mouthful of courgettes and placed her knife and fork together among the remains of her meal. ‘What’s up?’
‘Gorbachev.’ Lockhart helped himself to another slice of the Beef Wellington. ‘What a bloody mistake he turned out to be. None of us expected his bloody reforming zeal.’ He carved off a chunk and stuffed it into his mouth. She waited patiently while he chewed and swallowed. Food was always his recourse when he felt stressed. ‘Glasnost, telling the world enough of the dirty little secrets of Chernobyl to put the fear of God into them. And then perestroika. And now, with Bush in the White House, he’s cosying up to the Americans.’
None of this was news to Genevieve. But she didn't interrupt, accustomed to her father's habitual need to set the scene before getting to the point.
‘There’s a low rumble of discontent running right through the Soviet bloc. You can hear it from here if you have ears to listen. The natives are getting restless, Genny. So much of our profit comes from there. Both from what we publish and from the . . . indirect arrangements we have with Moscow. I’m concerned about what Gorbachev’s policies might mean for us. We need to talk behind closed doors with the allies we’ve cultivated over the years.’
Genevieve’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘All those hagiographies of heads of state that they made their citizens buy.’ She caught his frown and laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Ace, I’ll never say that outside these four walls. We were of course satisfying a need for the citizens to be informed about their leaders.’
He topped up their wine. ‘I can’t do a tour of our client states. My very presence will set alarm bells ringing. But we need to know what’s really going on beneath the surface. You can get them to take meetings because you’re my daughter and they owe me.’ Seeing her bridle, he hastily added, ‘And you’re the most senior executive in Pythagoras. But what we need right now is to reach out where you and I can’t go.’ A dramatic pause. He smoothed one of his eyebrows in a characteristic gesture.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We need to get a toehold with the dissidents. Listen to what’s being said in the universities and the bars and the underground meetings. Information is power, you know that. And if the Soviet Union’s going to go tits-up, I want to know who we should be talking to when the dust settles. What do you say?’
‘It makes perfect sense, but—’
‘And the perfect man for the job is Stephen Lavery,’ he announced with an air of triumph.
Stephen Lavery. A man who turned into a human oil slick when her father entered the room. Worse, a senior executive in Ace Media. He’d be reporting directly to her father about things that concerned the future of her business, leaving her out of the loop if he could. ‘An interesting choice,’ she said.
‘He’s very able.’
‘Yes, he is. But he doesn’t have a network in the East.’
‘You can connect him with your people,’ he said, nonchalant. ‘They’ll warm to him.’
‘Surely it would make more sense for me to take this on? I already have the connections, and I know how things work. The nuances. Different territories need very different approaches. If you want to get ahead with this right away, it would waste a lot of time for me to bring Stephen fully up to speed. And you know what they’re like in the East. It can take a long time to build trust. They’ll go through the motions, but they won’t do anything they’re afraid might get them in trouble with the authorities.’
He looked affronted and her heart sank. Then suddenly he smiled. ‘You really want to take this on? As well as your other responsibilities?’
She drank some more wine. ‘Pythagoras is my baby now, Ace. I want to prove to you how seriously I take that responsibility. If we’re planning for the future, I want to be at the heart of those plans. And that means driving the car, not sitting in the back seat.’
He leaned back in his chair and shook his head affectionately. ‘I didn’t want to overload you, but I see now you are more than capable. I should have known better. You are your father’s daughter, after all.’
The track she’d been listening to at least once a day for months echoed in her head. The only way is up, baby. Genevieve grinned. ‘When do I leave?’
9
Darkness had fallen by the time Allie reached Edinburgh. She’d delayed her departure long enough to brief three of her regular freelances on stories she wanted them to pursue. ‘I’m going to be on the road,’ she told them. ‘I’ll be on my mobile if you need me.’ She loved saying that. Even though her Motorola cell phone was like a small brick weighing down her bag, it still drew attention and envy whenever she pulled it out to answer it.
