Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (21 page)

It has also meant a week without the chance to thank you for the outstanding, one-in-a-million prize I’ve won! The letter arrived yesterday, Martin, confirming our non-transferable super-off-peak standard-class returns to Torquay! Beth, needless to say, was giddy as a child at Christmas. ‘Torquay!’ she kept whispering, eyes shining, face lit up. ‘Torquay in December! Imagine that!’

And all I could do was shake my head and marvel at the wonder of it all. It really does make those above-inflation ticket price rises every year worth it, after all. It really does make one feel that perhaps all those lost hours gazing out of a window as life passes one by aren’t lost at all, when one is presented with a pair of non-transferable super-off-peak standard-class returns to Torquay to be taken between November 8 and December 31.

Totes air-punch, as Bombshell might say.

But on the other hand… thanks. I’m deeply suspicious about being picked ‘at random’, and I’d take a few less delayed trains in exchange… but on the other hand, thanks. We do need a holiday. And perhaps Torquay is as good a place as any for a weekend away. In the cold.

I’ll be sure to tell you all about it, of course. I’m certain I’ll have plenty of opportunity.

And in the meantime: someone wrote something rude on the side of a carriage? Someone fell asleep on the toilet? A pregnant lady sat by herself in first class? For these reasons I arrive late at work and late home from work? Can you not do any better than that?

Oh – and as for the other delay, yes, I have ‘checked my records’, Martin, and yes, the delay did occur. I didn’t imagine it. I didn’t make it up. And if you don’t believe me, ask Sauron Flesh Harrower. He’ll tell you what for! He’ll give it to you straight!

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
23.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, November 12. Amount of my day wasted: 23 minutes. Fellow sufferers: None (probably. Can’t see properly).

Martin. I write this very drunk. I’m in Coach C on one of your trains in the middle of the night, we’ve stopped for what seems like for ever somewhere east of Reading, I’ve got half a bottle of bitter red wine and a packet of crisps left, and I’m fairly comprehensively slaughtered.

I’m also not in the best of moods. Today has not been a good day. Today has been a bad day. The worst, possibly.

I expect you’ve heard the news. You must have. You couldn’t miss it. Splashed across the front page of your favourite quality paper (and inside, pages four to seven, plus a focus piece on 18–19 and a special op-ed at the back), picked up by every news channel and radio bulletin in the country, and doubtless dominating the news agenda tomorrow. The shit (excuse my French) has hit the fan. Buckets of the stuff. Whole portaloos of it. Toilet blocks’ worth. Vast cesspits brimming with the most rancid effluence imaginable flying into a wind-farm-sized ocean of fans, spraying everywhere, covering everything.

We’re up to our necks in it, Martin. We’re drowning in it.

I woke up to the news on Radio 2 this morning. I’d got through a nappy change, half a cup of coffee and an Adele song before I knew about it. And then, the newsreader’s voice, with that perfectly pitched mix of jovial and serious for 6.30 on a Saturday morning, saying just about the worst thing she could have said.

‘Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday tabloid has been hit with fresh allegations of privacy invasion, this time involving the family of the victims of one of the country’s most notorious serial killers…’

And my stomach lurched. I almost dropped the coffee. I almost dropped the baby. And I grabbed my phone (I’d put it on silent last night so as not to wake Sylvie after she fell asleep in our bed again) and I checked my messages (eight missed calls, 12 missed texts) and it was all I could do not to throw up.

The rumours were true. The whispers were right. The
Globe
was being nobbled. Good and proper. The first seven texts were from Goebbels – increasingly frantic/furious/drunk variations on ‘wake up and call me immediately’ – and the other five from Harry the Dog (increasingly frantic/terrified/drunk variations on ‘wake up, the shit has hit the fan’). I couldn’t face the voicemails. I knew they’d just be more of the same.

Instead I rang Goebbels.

‘Finally,’ he snarled. ‘I don’t know what time you call this, but in case you haven’t realised yet, we’re right up the creek. I’ve been in the office all night. Get here now.’

I was about to hang up when he continued. ‘Oh, and Dan, don’t speak to anybody. If you must speak to your wife then tell her not to speak to anybody. I don’t need to tell you why.’

And so I spoke to Beth, shaking her awake as I handed Sylvie over – fast asleep again now it was daytime – pulling on my clothes, jamming a toothbrush around my mouth. I did all these things simultaneously; I told her something very bad had happened at the paper; I told her to turn on News 24 and not to speak to anyone about it, about anything I might have said; and even before she had woken up enough to properly register what was happening, I had my bag over my shoulder and I was out of the door.

The office was packed. The newsroom rammed. Some (like Goebbels) had been there since the first editions had dropped at midnight the night before; others (like me) had rushed in as soon as they woke and heard this morning. But before it was nine a.m., everyone was in. Staff and casuals and contractors and freelancers and stringers and anyone who had ever had anything to do with the paper – they were all there, milling around like so many hopeless sheep, waiting for someone to tell them what was going on.

Goebbels was in his office with the editor and the lawyers and the managing editor and the editorial director and a bunch of scary-looking people from the board of directors. Only the lawyers were talking. Everyone else looked serious. Some nodded occasionally. Goebbels did neither. He stared at his hands, his clenched fists.

And we all watched them – and tried to look like we weren’t watching them. And across the low murmur of furtive chatter was a soundtrack of bleeps and dings and bells and chimes and whistles and horns and xylophones and merry little tinkles that signalled incoming emails, arriving texts, fresh voicemails. All asking the same questions – and all ignored. Nobody was picking up.

Eventually the office door opened and the suits strode through the newsroom, followed by the editor (meeting nobody’s eye) and the managing editor (who tried an ill-advised smile before ducking his head and scurrying on) until finally we were left with Goebbels and a couple of lawyers. He stood literally shaking with anger. The lawyers did the speaking.

‘Colleagues,’ one of them began, and in contrast to Goebbels’ fizzing rage he was as smooth as warm butter. I hated him instantly. ‘You will have seen in the news this morning some very serious allegations against this paper. The first and most important point to make is that they are not true. I repeat: not true.

‘This newspaper has never illegally accessed the private voicemails of any member of the public. During the missing persons enquiry for Barry Dunn, and later when that enquiry became a murder investigation, nobody at the
Globe
ever sanctioned any intrusion into his privacy or the privacy of his mother, or that of any members of his family.’ He paused, looked around the office at all the faces, all the crossed arms. ‘We did not access voicemails, we did not hack into emails, we did not intercept texts or Twitter accounts or Facebook profiles or Myspace logins or school records or anything else anyone can think of. Not at that time, nor after. Or at any time. Ever.’

He nodded to us all, in a gesture that was presumably supposed to express solidarity, comradeship. ‘I understand that these allegations have been a very great shock to you all. As they have to me. And to us all – right to the very top of the company. But if there is one thing this newspaper has always stood for, it is the truth. And we will get to the truth in this matter. Remember that. We will find the truth. We always do.

‘And in the meantime, you may find yourself the subject of some media attention yourselves. Shoe on the other foot and all that.’ Stony silence. ‘Ahem. Well, I hardly need to tell you all, of all people, of the importance of saying nothing. Nothing at all. Not even “no comment” – we all know how just saying “no comment” can in itself look like one has something to hide. No head nodding, no head shaking, nothing. Some of the people who ask you questions will doubtless be friends, former colleagues now at rival news outlets. Please – I cannot stress this enough – do not talk to them. They are not your friends now.’

He clapped his hands together and glanced at Goebbels. ‘Before I go, let me just say this: the next few weeks are going to be difficult. We will be under the kind of scrutiny and subject to the sort of outrageous speculation that will make the last month or two seem like nothing. But as long as we stick together, as long as we remember that we have done nothing wrong, we’ll be fine.’

And then he left, to silence, and Goebbels cleared his throat. ‘Right,’ he growled, still looking like he was about to explode. ‘You don’t need me to tell you how bad this is. But that’s not our business. Let the suits and the legals sort it out. All I care about right now is the fact that it’s Saturday morning and I’ve got a newspaper to get out tonight.’

He pointed to me. ‘And as of this morning we don’t have a splash any more. The tax-fiddling Tory and his teenage totty is spiked. He’s untouchable now – or at least till this is all over. That’s what I’ve been told. Orders from the top. It would look petty, apparently. Like sour grapes.

‘So it’s gone ten, we’ve got no front page, no investigation and the rest of the news list is crap. What are you doing all standing there looking at me? Get to work.’ And he turned and strode into his office, slamming the door behind him.

Heavy, eh, Martin? What do you make of it? It was reassuring to hear that all those allegations were false though, eh? It was good to have the lawyers insist that they were categorically untrue. That we’d done nothing wrong at all. Phew! What a relief!

Except, of course, every single person in that room knew the lawyer was lying. We’d all read the story by that time. Most of us had already spoken to at least one former colleague about how things used to work around here. And given that the rumours had been floating around since the summer anyway… regardless of what I might have felt a month or two ago, or a week ago, or yesterday, as of this morning there has been no doubt in my mind, or the minds of just about everyone there, that the newspaper was almost certainly guilty on all charges.

You know what I think, Martin? I think someone at the paper did listen to the phone messages, read the emails, access the Twitter and Facebook accounts of poor little Barry Dunn. I think we got into those of his mum, too. And his sisters, his dad, his aunts, uncles, grandparents, his friends, teachers, neighbours… of anyone and everyone, in fact, we could think of who might have had any connection to the lad at all. Who might provide a clue, a lead, on his disappearance. And afterwards, when he was found, lying in that ditch, I believe we kept at it – hoping for a steer on the identity of the man who murdered him. Your so-called Beast of Berkhamsted.

We did it, all right. And so the question, Martin, is not whether we did it – but why we did it.

The answer? Because we needed stories, of course. It was before my time at the paper, but even I remember that little kid was the only thing in the news for weeks. The pressure to get something new for the splash must have been huge. The need to get a fresh line, an original angle, must have been immense. Those reporters – callous as it sounds – they were just doing their job. They were just looking for leads, same as journalists always have done.

But you know what else? What if they had found something, in those first few days after his disappearance? What if their under-the-radar investigations had uncovered a vital clue? What if they had led to the kidnapper himself? Or afterwards, to the murderer? What if little Barry had been saved? If that case, still open, still unsolved, was successfully wrapped up, all thanks to a
Sunday Globe
hack with a notebook full of shonky numbers and dodgy passwords?

He’d be a hero, right? That hack: he’d be front-page news. We’d be front-page news. We’d be the ones who rescued little Barry Dunn, the ones who caught the Beast of Berkhamsted. There’d be champagne and handshakes and visits to the Queen all round.

And now? We might as well have killed him ourselves. That’s how it feels tonight, 24 hours after the story broke, at the end of a day in which it’s only gained momentum, a day in which the line of people queuing up to condemn us (politicians, personalities, public figures of all colour and creed) has only lengthened, and whose condemnations only grown stronger.

And believe me, Martin, this is not the end. It’s barely the beginning. I know a story with legs when I see one… and this one’s just getting started. It’s barely out of the blocks yet. This one’s going to run and run and run.

Anyway. We got our own paper out in the end. We’ll be the only organ on Fleet Street not splashing on us. (We’ve got some rubbish about Jamie Best’s new hairdo. Though to be fair, he does look a prat: dreadlocks on white boys have never been a good idea.)

We were going to go to the pub straight after signing off our pages (of course) but word came back that the pub was full of rival hacks. Of course. So Goebbels sent a couple of trainees down to the supermarket with the company credit card and instructions to buy as much booze as they could fit into their trolleys.

And so we got trolleyed. We stayed in the office after work and we got trolleyed.

And what am I doing now? I’m in Coach C on one of your trains in the middle of the night, we’re finally coming into Oxford, I’ve got no red wine and no crisps left, and I’m fairly comprehensively slaughtered.