Two days later, the bloody shoes were still in an almost-neat line.
Oliver had convened a crisis meeting entitled Mother in Meltdown and I’d arrived home after the others the previous evening, having had to manage a small crisis myself over an order of storage units, to find not only was there an M&S macaroni cheese and garlic bread in the oven, but that someone had hoovered!
‘We’ll do more,’ he said. ‘Tilly can cook tomorrow.’
‘I can’t. I’m rehearsing,’ she said airily. ‘And staying over at Danni’s after.’
‘OH – are you all friendly again now? I asked in surprise.
‘She’s got a boyfriend,’ Tilly explained. ‘He’s a complete dry lunch but at least she’s stopped bursting into tears and screaming at everyone.’
‘Perhaps you should try it,’ said Ben.
I shot him a sideways look to check who he was addressing, but he was smirking at his sister. She pulled a face. ‘You are SO fucking hilarious …’
Ben appeared not to have shared the trauma of discovering his mother clasping a strange man to her bosom with his siblings, or at least not with Tilly, who would have tied me to a chair and got the torch out. It was possible he’d told Oliver, who was being terribly grown up about it and assuming I was awash with middle-aged hormones and would recover if he galvanised the household into doing the washing-up.
I’d not seen Jinni since our encounter with David, but he had sent several texts. Saying how great it was to see me and he was looking forward to Saturday. I was invited to arrive at seven and he would order in some amazing Thai food. He’d also sent directions. I wondered if he was expecting me to stay the night. Should I put an overnight bag in the boot? Or go in a taxi as we were bound to drink? Would the bag then look a bit obvious? Was it best to stick a toothbrush in my handbag and borrow his deodorant?
Every time I considered these burning issues, my stomach flipped over. I couldn’t tell if it was excitement or terror.
Right now, I was running late for breakfast with Malcolm. I’d not heard from him, either, since I’d turned down his offer of sausage casserole and let him know I’d already been given some CCTV, save one of his usual clipped emails instructing me to meet him outside the office at 8 a.m.
It was already five past.
I’d stayed in bed till I’d heard various doors finish slamming, both to avoid clogging up the kitchen and because Tilly was in my en suite again. By the time the house was quiet and I was dressed, it had turned into 7.45 and I was still unpacking the dishwasher.
I sent Malcolm a brief missive to say I was on my way and rushed out of the door. The sun was already pouring down onto my front garden and I stopped by the gateway to pick a head of lavender and crush it between my fingers. Breathing in the scent, I made my way rapidly along the road, reminding myself I to call my mother. Tilly had apparently spoken to her before I got home the night before but had failed to tell me till 11 p.m. She said Granny had asked her three times what her job was and had forgotten who Sam was, altogether.
I rounded the corner into the High Street and hurried down towards Northstone News. It was 8.21 a.m. There was no sign of Malcolm and the front door was still locked. I peered through the glass panel and saw Grace sitting at the reception desk. I rapped on the window.
Grace looked up, face stony, made an exaggerated gesture of looking at the clock on the wall behind her and then got slowly to her feet. She came over to the door as if weighted down by concrete and stretched up to slide a bolt across.
‘Yes?’
‘Good morning, Grace. I’m here to meet Malcolm.’
She folded her lips inwards. ‘Rather you than me.’
I attempted a wide smile. ‘Shall I go up?’
‘He’s in a right mood.’
Emily was at her desk in the corner and one older woman was standing at a filing cabinet, but apart from that the upstairs office was empty. I went into Malcolm’s room at the far end to find him sitting in his large swivel chair, staring at a pile of newspapers in front of him. He didn’t look up.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ I said.
Malcolm grunted.
‘But I’m here now,’ I went on cheerily, concluding that my holding up the commencement of his first meal of the day had not gone down well. ‘And ready to go. Looking forward to it.’
Malcolm looked irritable. He stood up and walked to the doorway. ‘Emily!’ He bellowed across the open-plan office. ‘Any chance of making us coffee?’
He returned to his seat and indicated I should sit opposite.
‘The other one would start bleating on about stereotypes in the workplace,’ he said with disgust.
‘Are we not going to Sid’s?’ I asked, as he continued to look morosely at the pages on his desk.
‘Not yet …’
I looked at the clock. I had a feeling Paul might phone soon after nine. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘There certainly is.’ He started to push the newspaper across the desk when something caught his attention in the outer office and he walked past me to the door, raising his arm and beckoning.
Gabriel appeared in the doorway and smiled at me in greeting.
‘What are you doing here?’ Malcolm barked.
Gabriel looked uncertain. ‘Well, I was going to write up the–’
‘I meant,’ said Malcolm, with slow menace, ‘what have you come here for at all? I thought you worked for the Daily News …’
Gabriel frowned. ‘I don’t know what you mean–’
‘Don’t you?’ Malcolm turned the paper around so we could both see it. He jabbed a finger at the headline at the top of the page above a few inches of print and what appeared to be a picture of my front door. I leant forward to see: ‘Protestors target Northstone Newbies as property prices soar.’
‘See that?’ He looked straight at me, then at Gabriel. ‘Where did they get that story from, then? It doesn’t come out in our paper until Friday.’
Gabriel started to speak, then stopped as Malcolm brought the flat of his hand crashing down on the newsprint again, making us both jump. ‘And this? Graffiti sprayed at the station?’
Malcolm leant across his desk and swung his computer screen round. The Daily News website showed a picture of a train pulling into Northstone.
‘I didn’t even know about that! And apparently it happened yesterday!!’ He carried on thumping. ‘Rebels paint the town red? What sort of a caption is that?’
He glared at Gabriel. ‘You tipped off a national over your own paper, you sneaky little git, and they couldn’t even come up with a decent headline.’
He shook his head, looking for a moment genuinely bereft.
‘It was eggs and flour, dammit!’ he exploded. He looked back at me. ‘How could they miss that? It’s sheer incompetence. I saw it straight away. “DFLs take a battering!”’
I gave an involuntary snort of laughter, which I tried to strangle as I saw the alarm on Gabriel’s face.
Malcolm swung around to him, in fresh fury. ‘That should have been bloody obvious, even to a simpleton like you.’
‘I didn’t,’ began Gabriel.
‘YOU DID!’ roared Malcolm, making me jump again. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, boy!’ He took a step towards Gabriel, who had gone slightly pale. ‘You gave them this story and don’t you dare try to deny it.’
Gabriel flicked an anxious glance at me. ‘I mean I had nothing to do with the headline.’
Malcolm looked at him witheringly and I saw Gabriel shrink. ‘Of course you didn’t. Nobody would ask you, would they? You can’t do anything. You’re just a brainless, ill-educated, inane, gibbering TWERP.’
‘Malcolm!’ I was shocked into response. ‘Really, stop now, that’s nasty …’
Malcolm threw me a look of pity. ‘You can be Mother Teresa if you want to, but there’s no room in this office for disloyal idlers. Clear your desk, you little bastard …’
‘Malcolm!’ I shrieked again, seeing Gabriel now looked stricken. ‘That’s enough!’
Malcolm slammed shut the paper, folded it up, tucked it beneath his arm and strode towards the door. ‘If you still want breakfast, I’m going now,’ he said without looking at me, and disappeared across the open-plan office.
I put a hand on Gabriel’s arm. He was standing very still. ‘He can’t just sack you,’ I said quietly. ‘There are laws and regulations. He’ll have to give you a warning – I’ll talk to him.’
Gabriel gazed back at me, shaken. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen like that,’ he said. ‘I was pitching a feature to them as Malcolm wasn’t interested any more – about the effects of the high-speed on the community, the rising house prices and the backlash against the DFLs and newcomers benefiting at the expense of the locals.’ He took a big breath. ‘The editor of the Sunday magazine liked it but he said I didn’t have enough. He said they’d need concrete evidence it was a concerted campaign. He said so far it sounded like a dispute with neighbours.’
Gabriel stopped and breathed again. ‘So I told them about the eggs and that someone had sprayed an anti-DFL slogan at the station – I was just trying to stay in touch – to show I was gathering the proof. I never thought it would be run as a news story …’ Gabriel stopped and looked miserable. ‘They probably don’t want the feature now and I’ve lost my job.’
I gave his arm a squeeze. ‘I’m sure Malcolm will calm down,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and find him,’ I added, as Emily appeared, also looking traumatised, with two mugs. ‘You two have them,’ I told her. ‘And try not to panic,’ I finished as Gabriel sank into a chair outside Malcolm’s office. I left Emily hovering over him solicitously and went back downstairs to reception, where Grace was on the phone.
I waved a hand in farewell before I realised I didn’t know where I was going. I waited until the receiver had been crashed back into place.
‘Oh Grace, where is Stan’s?’ I asked nicely.
She frowned. ‘Opposite Nat West.’ There was a pause while she scrutinised me. ‘You religious?’
I frowned too. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Hmm.’ She went back to her keyboard, leaving me blinking.
Was she suggesting I needed help from The Above to deal with Malcolm?
‘Thanks,’ I said, as I pushed at the door. She didn’t answer.
I found Malcolm already in front of a coffee and a plate of toast.
‘I didn’t know if you were coming or were too busy mollycoddling that idiot boy,’ he said, by way of greeting. ‘I’m having the power plate – what do you want?’
I looked at the board. If I missed a call from Paul I’d have to pretend I’d been opening the door to the postman, who then collapsed and needed mouth-to-mouth. ‘Erm, just eggs on toast would be great. Scrambled, perhaps.’
Malcolm rapped out the order to a small thin man in a striped apron and then looked into his cup in disgust.
‘It’s not going to taste the same now,’ he said crossly. ‘Do you want a job as a reporter? At least you’re half-way intelligent.’
‘You’re not really going to sack him, are you?’
‘I certainly am. Ungrateful little twerp. All the training I’ve given him. And he goes to someone else. When was he going to tell me about the graffiti? We could at least have got it up on the website first.’
‘They could have found out about it on Twitter anyway,’ I offered.
‘Don’t make excuses. He gave them the details.’
Malcolm crunched down hard on a piece of toast. ‘No sense of loyalty,’ he growled between munches. ‘The little bastard wants to remember who pays his wages. He won’t get a job with the Daily News. A, because he’s an idiot and B, because they’ve just laid off six people and even real reporters can’t get work.’
He took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Do you know how much they gave him?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think he got anything.’
‘Pah!’ Malcolm pushed his cup aside as a huge plate was brought to the table crammed with sausages, bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes. Malcolm prodded at it with a fork. ‘Then he’s even more stupid than I thought he was,’ he said. ‘Where’s the black pudding?’
By the time Malcolm had worked his way through what was probably the government’s recommended cholesterol allowance for the next three months and had a second cup of coffee, he was almost benign again.
‘In the normal way,’ he told me,’ I’d have demanded half the money and given him a few baby shows to visit and that would have been the end of it.’
‘Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?’ I asked, shocked. Malcolm shrugged. ‘It’s how it worked in my day.’
‘When I tipped the Sun off an Arsenal striker was going to Man City, and the manager was resigning as a result, my local editor chased me down the street threatening to punch my lights out. Made me give him ALL the dosh. But he took me out and got me slaughtered on it when he’d calmed down.’ He gave a guffaw. ‘All a learning curve.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘If you’ve done it yourself, you should be a bit more understanding. Gabriel didn’t intend them to print anything yet – he was just trying to sell them the feature you weren’t interested in, so he’d have some cuttings.’
Malcolm rolled his eyes. ‘The boy needs to get a grip on the real world. You can’t run a story on hysteria and hearsay. How were your eggs?’
‘Pretty good. And brilliant toast. Just too much …’
Malcolm inspected my plate. I pushed it towards him. ‘Try.’
He leant out and took a forkful. ‘Not bad at all. Never usually eat scrambled egg out, because my own is so bloody good.’ He used my knife to get the last vestiges onto his fork.
‘My kids say mine is the business too,’ I told him.
He looked at me intently. ‘What’s your secret?’
‘Lots of butter, a good splash of milk and cook it slowly …’
‘Exactly!’ Malcolm thumped the table in triumph. ‘Michael Winner was an odious man but he knew about food. Apart from scrambled eggs. He said he could do them in a few seconds. Proper scrambled eggs take half an hour.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far–’ I began, but Malcolm had a zealous light in his eye, and was in full flow about foaming butter and the right sort of wooden spoon.
‘I just mix it all together first, tip it in and keep stirring,’ I offered.
Malcolm looked appalled. ‘You need to try mine,’ he said firmly. He stood up. ‘We will arrange it. Now I must go back and see if that boy’s stopped snivelling.’
He put a twenty-pound note on the table, gestured to the small man I assumed was Stan and picked up his newspaper. Then he looked at me hard. ‘So your boyfriend’s supplied cameras, has he?’
‘He’s not–’
‘Let my man do his installation. I’ve got a feeling about this. Trust me?’
I nodded. Realising how much I did.
‘Do you think–?’ I began, but Malcolm was already heading for the door.
‘Didn’t you want to talk to me about some article?’ I called after him.
‘Too late now,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Save it for the next lot of eggs.’