The Pink and the Grey (7 page)

“Hacking? That’s all big boys’ stuff,” I said. “We’re a tiny, tiny paper. We tell the truth. I
think
we tell the truth. I try to. It’s as dull as Hull on a wet Thursday in November, but it’s accurate, give or take a stolen by-line. Accurate, you know, as long as I’m allowed my notepad.” I mimed scribbling. “If you ask me, the dodgiest things we do are the puns in the headlines. We spend more time on these than on writing the shite that follows them.”

Silence again, which I filled before a new question could be asked. “You know, at the risk of sounding defensive, we’re not all horrible people. Sure, I wouldn’t give Geoff the time of day if I didn’t get paid for it, and the red-tops with their brown envelopes and private investigators on the sly, they’ve done bad things. But it’s not what I do. Not what I want to do. I want to make life better, investigate the arseholes and get ’em put away. I’m one of the good guys, I promise you. Now, are you gonna tell me what this is all really about?”

A quiet voice: “Yeah.”

“Off the record.”

“Yeah.”

“Then fire away. I’m all ears, apart from the mouth.”

He took a deep breath. “Do you know much about your editor’s past?”

I stopped and turned to him. “Would you stop talking about the pissing editor and get on with your story?”

He shushed me, a hand on my arm again, and walked on. “I am, I am. This is about him. Burnett. Do you know what he did before the
Bugle
?”

“A reporter on Fleet Street, is all I know. Does he have something on you? A little dirt? Is that what all this no-notepad stuff’s about, you want to tell the story properly? I can probably arrange—”

“No. You are correct, he was on Fleet Street, twenty years ago. He was an investigative reporter, just like you want to be. He broke stories, like you want to, and sent people to prison, like you want to.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s a
but
coming up.”

Emerging from the trees, we walked a few yards to a zebra crossing. There were still a few taxis trailing up and down. Were we heading towards Midsummer Common, I wondered? It looked very much like it.

Maybe, I thought, he just
said
he lived by the river. Maybe he was planning to lure me to the riverside, break my back on a narrowboat and toss me in. Maybe the story might be about me after all. The pavement ahead peeled right, towards the river, and I consoled myself drunkenly with the knowledge that if he did bump me off there’d be a massive front page photo of me, albeit below the masthead where you don’t
really
want it rather than as one of the columnists’ mugshots along the top, the duck shoot.

Seb took his time, apparently gathering his thoughts. I kept my mouth shut, and shivered.

“My father had a business. It was moderately successful, not yet global but expanding. It had won an export award. A bright future awaited us, so we thought. And then your editor decided this could not be allowed to happen. He uncovered some financial irregularities — correction, what he
thought
were financial irregularities.”

“Ah,” I said. I saw where this was going. I imagined a small silver key in his back, winding him up and up as he spoke.

“He didn’t contact my father. Why not?
Why not?
It could all have been stopped there and then. Misunderstanding, or something. An apology, no hard feelings. But no, oh no. As far as we can tell he didn’t contact anyone from the company at all. Not a word! No phone call, nothing!” He was angry now. “Based on barely more than supposition and a source even the—
even the Metropolitan Police
considered unreliable, he and his editor went barrelling ahead and just printed the story. No regard for the truth. No regard for the effect on the business. No regard for the family.” He punctuated the sentences by chopping the chill air ahead of him. Someone across the street looked over at the noise.

We skipped across a set of traffic lights and through a metal gate with a narrow cattle grid, its dark paint peeling off with the passage of thousands of bikes and feet. This was Midsummer Common, dozens of acres of grassland criss-crossed by paths, and with Narnia-like street lamps at the intersections. It was currently occupied by a herd of cows somewhere away in the mist. Only in Cambridge.

The river was getting closer. We skirted the eastern edge of the common, on a path curving slowly to the right as the common narrowed, and then took a fork aimed directly towards one of the footbridges over the Cam. We’d be passing not far from many of the college boathouses across the river, where some of the fittest and most lycra-hugging arseholes of their generation trained and rowed. Not that I used to walk along the footpath occasionally on the off-chance, of course, and
never
with my long lens.

“So what happened?” I asked, hoping he’d unwound a little.

There was no let up in his anger. “What happened? What always happened. Businesses were ruined. Lives were ruined. There was a cascading effect.” He mimed tumbling over and over. “I was young at the time, protected. It is only recently that I learned the whole truth. The board sacked my father, of course. They could do little else against the publicity, day after day after day. He tried to clear his name. No chance of that. Your editor and his friends kept on and on with the story despite the lack of evidence. They grabbed at anything to destroy him. They dug up an old girlfriend and made people think they were having an affair. Nudge-nudge, no smoke without fire. Those stories. Bitter, vicious lies.”

I nodded. He needed to get this out.

“It was relentless, and groundless, and devastating. The family, my family suffered greatly. The pressure. The constant cameras, the intrusion. At our windows, at the front door, on the bonnet of the car. It was a witch hunt. I used to have nightmares, all banging and flashes and arguments and tears, whirling around.”

He stopped for a moment, and looked at me, and took a breath, and became quiet again. “My elder sister took an overdose. Luckily we found her in time. In fact, I found her — she was supposed to be babysitting me while our parents were out talking to solicitors. And the stress of it all, well, ultimately, it ended my parents’ marriage.”

Well, that put a great big fucking downer on the evening, right there.

“So you see,” he said with a cold smile, “I’m not a great fan of Geoff Burnett.”

It was my turn to be silent.

He finished the story, slowly, quietly. “And afterwards, well, my father was reinstated eventually because he had done nothing wrong, of course. But it could never be what it had been before. It was not long before he left that company and started something new, not so
corrupted
with memories I suppose. Something quite successful, which is good. I grew up with my mother, as did my sister.”

“How is she now?”

“Fine. Both are fine. My sister is married, with a little girl. My mother says she is far too busy now for marriage.” He let out a short, sad grunt. His foot connected with a pebble, deliberately or not I couldn’t tell, and it skittered along the path and escaped into the grass.

I made the right noises but I wasn’t sure what I was expected to say — what I
could
say. I could hardly apologise on behalf of all journalists — or even just Geoff, had I wanted to — for any wrongdoing perpetrated by others while I was playing kiss-chase. And that’s assuming everything Seb had told me was true.

“Listen, I’m sorry, but—”

“What’s it got to do with you?”

“Crudely, yeah.” I gave him a sympathetic smile.

We were approaching a footbridge, which arced low over the Cam to slice through the boathouses on the other side. At the steps, Seb stopped and turned to me. “We were a happy, contented family until Geoff Burnett came along. I would very much like to organise a little payback. I want you to help.”

Hands deep in my pockets for warmth, I shrugged and shifted from foot to foot. “Hey, I mean, I sympathise, but what the hell can I do? Your beef is with Geoff and I don’t want to be piggy in the middle. If I’m honest I’m only in this right now for the mojitos and the afters — and since we’re standing still in the cold I have the sneaking suspicion I’m gonna be eating dessert on my own tonight.”

Seb laughed sadly. “I apologise. I had no intention to lead you on. I want you to help because you say you want to right wrongs. You want to fight injustice. You want to put away the bad guys.”

“Yeah, but not the guy who pays my cocking wages.”

“So justice has a limit, and the limit is your wallet, is that what you are saying?”

“I’m saying—” I let out a frustrated breath, a cloud of steam rising into the night. “I’m saying you don’t get far in journalism by attacking the man with the spike, is all, even if he is a shithead.”

“Look at it this way. Who better to establish your credentials? You want to be an investigative journalist? Investigate.”

“It’s not as easy as that. There’s a contract, you know,
reasons
.”

“Of course. There are always reasons. And all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

“Is that from
Hollyoaks
?” I said, giving him a grin. Then I looked up at the stars for a second or two, and sucked in a lungful of air, sharp and cold. “Look, I’ll see what I can do. I’m not saying no, I’m not saying yes. I have a bit of due diligence to work through. Make sure you’re not some kind of lunatic, that sort of thing. You’ve got to admit you haven’t given me a huge amount to go on, though.”

He held out his hand and I shook it. It near burned with heat, the passion of a wronged soul. “Sebastian Greatsholme. Spelled G-R-E-A-T-S-H-O-L-M-E, pronounced Gresham. Pain in the arse. I might change it one day — if I meet the right man. I shall be in touch.”

“Was it something I said?” Best puppy-dog eyes at Claire as she ranted all over me.

“Oh, Spencer!” she growled, wrapping the god-awful scarf around her neck. “I’m tired and I’ve drunk too much and I’m afraid my patience is exhausted. You’re a spoiled child. I don’t see why I should have to change your nappy. It’s no wonder Amanda can barely tolerate you. In her position I’d probably be the same.”

“Don’t talk about her, that mangy old— Tonight is for dancing and flirting and loving and tomorrow is another hangover.” I
might
have been a little tipsy, perhaps one or two over the eight. I’m not entirely sure how I managed to upset Claire so, but she clattered to her feet and effected a vibrant and stentorian exit at a stomp unexpected in one usually so delicate. I suspect it likely I made an unfortunate remark about her little salesman fellow, probably occupying a double-seat on a red-eye to Taiwan at that very moment to pick up more door-to-door throwaways.

I granted myself a silent five minutes, huddled in the cubicle with what drops remained of bottle
n
, before a swift visit to the below-ground toiletry facilities for activities that were purely above board.

I returned to find the cubicle hijacked by two young things ascending each other’s learning curves at some velocity. No matter. In any case it was well past time for a leisurely sweep around the establishment to see and be seen, to sniff and be sniffed. It was always a similar pattern: the same faces with the same greeting rituals, the same vapid smalltalk.
Yes, it’s nice and busy tonight. No, I haven’t seen so-and-so. I do hope the weather clears up. I fear punting season is at an end. Have you heard about such-and-such? I understand X is seeing Y, and Z is climbing the walls
. I was not a gossipy queen, except in that I was (a) a bit of a queen and (b) a bit of a gossip.

Cambridge had a relatively small cabal of homosexualists for its size — at least, counting those that frequented Bar Humbug. There were many others who never dared venture out of St Paul’s or whichever lesser college they attended, and there were rufty-tufty towny types who preferred to take their alcohol from a much straighter glass and drank with the dirty heterosexuals. Consequently you could stride into the bar and know almost everyone there. Not
know
know, necessarily — not biblical knowledge, though one or two theologists worshipped there occasionally — but anything from basic facial recognition to flighty acquaintance to drinking buddy to closest chums of all sorts. And then there were the sainted
Others
, the strangers. I’m not referring to the weirdos — like my good self — with caps and hypno-eyes, but the gentlemen recognised by no-one. The
fresh meat
, one might say.

My grand pinball tour of the bar was never explicitly designed to identify these types, but it was a pleasing side-effect. On a busy Friday evening thumping with multicoloured young persons’ music there were usually one or two strays to be found loitering. Sometimes these were naïve, unaccompanied straight boys, smelling of something advertised on television, who never stayed long unless a few umbrella specials revealed they were secretly neither naïve nor straight. Occasionally we were visited by hetero couples, the male inevitably clinging tightly to the other to assert his sexuality, and anxiously avoiding eye contact: these
Pussies of the Jungle
were always worth a slow, deliberately accidental touch or two to make them all skittish and jittery, eyes wide — and there’s me thinking that
we
were the friends of Dorothy.
 

And then, as this night, we might see some obvious college gentlemen testing the waters, polar bear cubs perhaps out on the ice for the very first time. Usually a small, tight group, rarely alone. This time, three: a confusing number, as any two might be paired already and it was not always evident which. What
was
always evident was the unofficial queue of regulars trying their luck. A succession of doomed redshirts.

I liked to think this was modernity’s homage to the centuries-old tradition of presenting débutantes to the sovereign at court — which was, of course, merely a device to insert marriageable young ladies into the eyelines of eligible stallions. Our miniature establishment had even evolved an order of precedence, of sorts.
Your Otherly Majesty, might I present the Usual Suspects, beginning with Count Hypno-Eyes of Bucharest
.