There was only enough milk for one mug of coffee. Allie made it last as long as she could; she didn’t dare leave the flat to go to the nearby shops in case she missed Danny’s call. However hard she tried to convince herself this was no big deal, she struggled to concentrate on the P.D. James novel she’d started the day before. Her eyes were drawn to her watch every few minutes. Eventually, she gave up and pulled Pictures on a Page from where it was waiting on the shelf. Since she’d started her traineeship, she’d been fascinated by the books that the great newspaperman Harold Evans had written about the craft of journalism. She’d not had time to devote much attention to his newly published tome about the power and practice of photojournalism. Even if she couldn’t focus on the words, at least she could appreciate the images.
When the call came, it wasn’t from Danny. When Allie snatched up the receiver, she heard the familiar nasal tones of the newsdesk secretary. ‘‘Z’at you, Allie? He wants you in right now. I’ve sent a taxi to your flat on the account.’
It clearly wasn’t a request. ‘I’ll see you soon.’ As she spoke, the blast of a car horn sounded from the street below. She dropped the handset on its rest and made for the door, grabbing her bag and coat on the way. Jeans and an unflattering Aran jumper would have to do. It was her day off, after all.
‘Where’s the fire?’ the cabbie demanded as she got in. ‘I was told this was double urgent.’
‘You know what they’re like,’ Allie said. ‘Always a matter of life and death, and then it’s tomorrow’s chip paper.’
Allie found Angus Carlyle in his office, sprawled in his executive leather chair, Danny’s story spread across the desk in front of him. ‘The third musketeer,’ he announced with the kind of flourish that created the impression of an invisible cavalier hat. Danny was hunched in a visitor’s chair in one corner with the air of a cowed child waiting for the next blow to fall. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. In contrast, Peter McGovern looked relaxed, one ankle on the opposite knee, a cigarillo burning between his fingers. Today’s shirt was as pink as the Financial Times, a fine white stripe running through it. The only touch of elegance in the room, she thought.
‘This is some tale,’ Carlyle boomed. ‘So, additional reporter Alison Burns, tell me what your part in all of this is?’
She flicked a sideways glance at Danny, who was no help. ‘I did the background on Gregor Menstrie,’ she said. ‘I spoke to the London School of Economics. They said they had no record of him ever studying there. And I helped Danny knock the story into shape.’
Carlyle smiled. It reminded her of a lion baring its teeth. ‘Ah, that explains why it reads like something a journalist might write. You might not be top of the pops when it comes to bringing the stories in but you’ve definitely got a knack for stringing a few pars together. Maybe you’re wasted as a reporter. Maybe you’d be better placed doing rewrites on the subs table.’ It was a typically back-handed compliment and it stung, as she knew it was meant to. Carlyle liked to keep his infantry on the back foot. Only the specialists like McGovern received the benefit of his good graces. They were the ones who might be tempted to jump ship and join the opposition, after all.
Allie said nothing. There was no possible response that wouldn’t hand him more ammunition.
Carlyle suddenly sat upright in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘It’s a great story. I want to run it big across two days. Obviously we’ll have to do the showdowns that the Boy Wonder here has outlined at the end. There’s only one problem, and it’s a three-hundred-and-twenty-seven-thousand-pound problem. Anybody here know what I’m talking about?’
‘The Sunday Mail judgement last week,’ McGovern said. ‘But that was different.’
‘How?’ Carlyle demanded, leaning across the desk, his big head looming like a predator sizing up dinner. ‘It looks pretty bloody similar to me.’
McGovern drew in a mouthful of smoke and breathed it out as he responded. ‘The Mail said the insurance company were obtaining money by false pretences. That they were promising returns on investment that they knew couldn’t materialise. That turned out to be very hard to prove because the prospectus was carefully worded. The insurers were able to hide behind the excuse that they were hard-working but incompetent rather than criminal. This is entirely different, Angus. We’re accusing Paragon of knowingly conniving at defrauding the taxman.’
‘And we can take the readers through every simple step,’ Danny chipped in.
Carlyle ignored him and harrumphed. ‘It makes me nervous,’ he said. ‘Very bloody nervous. And if it makes me nervous, you can bet it’ll have the editor shitting his breeks.’
McGovern chuckled. Allie couldn’t quite believe her ears. She turned to see his face; his expression was equally amused. ‘Calm down, Angus. That’s what the night lawyer is for.’
‘The Mail has lawyers and they still ended up in the shit.’ Carlyle slumped back in his seat again. ‘OK. I’ll talk to the lawyer when he comes in. If he gives us the green light, we’ll do the showdowns next week.’ He gazed up at the ceiling, clearly thinking. ‘Wednesday, so we can run it Thursday and Friday. Class dismissed.’ He waggled his fingers, waving them off. ‘Don’t go far, Danny. I’m confident the lawyer will have some questions for you.’
On the far side of the door, McGovern patted Danny on the shoulder. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Danny took a step away. ‘He just put me through the wringer.’
‘That’s what he’s paid for,’ McGovern said. ‘If you can’t stand up to Angus, how can the paper expect you to stand up to a lawyer if it ever comes to court?’ He strode off towards the bank of lifts, insouciant as a flâneur on a Paris boulevard.
‘He’s got a point,’ Allie said. ‘You shouldn’t let him bully you. It’s a great story. You can stand it up, even if nobody caves in the showdowns.’
‘Thanks,’ Danny said. ‘You’d better get back to your day off. Sorry about you getting dragged in. I’ll let you know how I get on with the lawyer.’ He turned away and slouched back to his desk, apparently discouraged.
Allie watched him, wondering. In his shoes, with a story like this under her belt, she’d be irrepressible. She really liked Danny. Really liked him. But he was going to have to dig deep and find some assertiveness if it was going to go any further than that. It was a fine line to walk, she knew that. Simon, who she’d gone out with for most of her second year at Cambridge, had let her walk all over him in his desire to please. The affair had died of boredom. But Matthew, a brief fling in her final year, had been determined to be in charge of every aspect of their relationship, even its end. After she’d dumped him, he’d gone round every one of her friends he’d ever met telling them what a bitch she was. She hadn’t chosen well in the past, it was apparent.
This time, she really hoped it could be different.
It was so cold her cheekbones hurt. But for the first time in days the low grey Glasgow skies had lifted, giving way to the kind of bright blue day Allie had grown up with on the east coast. It was a clear light she missed, and seeing it lifted her spirits. She decided to walk home. Up past the motorway that slashed a wound through the city, then down the fag end of Sauchiehall Street towards Kelvingrove. There were still piles of frozen gritty slush by the roadsides but pedestrians had worn a path along the pavements; walking no longer felt like a life-threatening activity.
The sunshine brought out the rich red sandstone of the Kelvingrove Gallery and the Kelvin Hall opposite, its garish circus posters shouting their promises across the street. Beyond them, the grim charcoal outlines of the Western Infirmary and the Gothic spire of the university reminded her that this was a city of contrasts; beauty and ugliness, extreme poverty and extreme wealth, drugged depression and savage humour.
Allie turned up Byres Road towards home. Her savings had been growing significantly every month; after years of making every penny count, first as a student then as a trainee, her Clarion salary felt like riches beyond dreams of avarice. Her expenses alone were only slightly less than her previous wage. She reckoned she was close to having enough for the deposit on a flat. The only drawback was that the mortgage company would demand six months of payslips. But she’d cross that line next month; it was time to start checking out the market.
Byres Road was where the estate agents had pitched their tents and Allie spent the rest of the morning browsing their windows. She knew exactly what she wanted – a tenement flat with two or three bedrooms, a short walk from the shops and the bus routes into town. A quiet street, ideally. Thankfully, there appeared to be several options, and a few of them were within her price range. She didn’t care if they needed work; her father loved DIY and she knew he’d happily spend his weekends helping her knock it into shape. The grinding discomfort of conversations about nothing would be worth it.
By the time she got home, it was mid-afternoon. Her answering machine was clear of messages. She wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Had the lawyer given the story the kiss of death? Or was he telling Danny what needed to be in place before they could consider running it? Were they working out how to conduct the showdowns? Or had it simply been put on the back burner, subsumed by the live news stories of the day? Whatever it was, why hadn’t Danny called her? Had she become irrelevant now that she’d given him what he needed? Surely he wasn’t that kind of man? Had she misjudged him so badly?
Allie sighed. She missed not having a close friend in Glasgow. She hoped Rona Dunsyre might fill that slot, but there was still a long way to go there. She needed a distraction. Then she spotted the leaflet she’d dumped next to the phone. She’d picked it up at the SNP meeting. One of the men in suits had been about to toss it in the bin but she’d rescued it. NO TO DEVO, YES TO INDY, it was headlined. She scanned it swiftly, noticing it announced a meeting scheduled for that evening.
Friday evening TV held no appeal for her. She hadn’t given up on life yet, Allie told herself. OK, some might not agree with that judgement, since she was seriously considering a political fringe meeting as an appealing alternative.
What the hell, Allie thought. Stories lurked everywhere. So did potential friends.